What summer?
Oooh, it's been a long time.
The rest of my "summer vacation" went well, following child psychiatrists around in the different settings in which they work. Saw a number of depressed teens that got sort-of better, at least better enough to get discharged (and then it's another can of worms to maintain them so that they *don't* end up back in the hospital), a kid diagnosed with schizophrenia (which is odd because symptoms don't usually manifest until 18-20s), and one of the more interesting kids was one who was pretty much on the way to being diagnosed as borderline personality (can't formally do it until they're 18). I learned a lot about "the system," so to speak, a lot about the legal aspects of child psychiatry (5150s, 5250s), got more comfortable with interviewing (the psych interview is a little different from the interviews i've done in clinic), and even saw some adults during a "dry" week at the hospital with no new county admissions (apparently during the summer it can get pretty slow, kids don't go as crazy because they're out having fun and not in the structured environment that is school.) The most interesting one was an adult male who was off his bipolar meds for about a month and was pretty manic when he came into the hospital. after the psychiatrist finished interviewing him, we heard the patient talking to someone while he was alone in the room. when he was questioned, the patient replied that he was talking to his wife on his cell phone. the psychiatrist asked for his consent to take an antipsychotic, and the patient was hesitant because he'd never taken one of those. so he went to the window of the room and "googled" it. right then. he said it was a little slow. but he'll let the doctor know.
wow.
that's bipolar disorder with psychosis for you.
and now school has started, classes are faster, there are more of them, but at least some of them are more interesting than last year (anything is more interesting than biochem...). The Derm folks are great - they're really enthusiastic, lecture really well, tell good stories, and are great teachers. Oncology has been cool because we have a different cancer each week, and they have a multidisciplinary panel come in and talk about a case, with "ask-the-audience" capabilities - we get a keypad and key in our answers, see the results, and talk about it. It really helps for the hot afternoon lectures when we have no attention span. Micro is hard. There's really no other way to learn about different bugs, what they cause, how patients present, and how to treat it than rote memorization. it's really difficult to get the big picture. we had a midterm today and it could've been a lot worse, but it was still pretty tough. what else are we taking? we have 6 classes for this block of 6 weeks. we have to do really comprehensive H&Ps this year with hospital patients, I have my first shot at the end of the month. My preceptor is a gasteroenterologist who specializes in endoscopy. I hope i get to see some procedures when i'm not with a patient. Pathology follows Oncology (i like that integration), and we're still getting the groundwork for pharmacology.
where else should this stream of consciousness go.....christian and i found a place in Sac. We got the keys today :). and my parents know about it. because christian talked to them about the future. if you know what i mean. Amanda and David will be visiting next weekend (even though we're 1/2way moving), and we'll finally get to go to Napa with them and Tammy! Erin should be visiting around that time as well :)
bed time, going to clinic tomorrow!
The rest of my "summer vacation" went well, following child psychiatrists around in the different settings in which they work. Saw a number of depressed teens that got sort-of better, at least better enough to get discharged (and then it's another can of worms to maintain them so that they *don't* end up back in the hospital), a kid diagnosed with schizophrenia (which is odd because symptoms don't usually manifest until 18-20s), and one of the more interesting kids was one who was pretty much on the way to being diagnosed as borderline personality (can't formally do it until they're 18). I learned a lot about "the system," so to speak, a lot about the legal aspects of child psychiatry (5150s, 5250s), got more comfortable with interviewing (the psych interview is a little different from the interviews i've done in clinic), and even saw some adults during a "dry" week at the hospital with no new county admissions (apparently during the summer it can get pretty slow, kids don't go as crazy because they're out having fun and not in the structured environment that is school.) The most interesting one was an adult male who was off his bipolar meds for about a month and was pretty manic when he came into the hospital. after the psychiatrist finished interviewing him, we heard the patient talking to someone while he was alone in the room. when he was questioned, the patient replied that he was talking to his wife on his cell phone. the psychiatrist asked for his consent to take an antipsychotic, and the patient was hesitant because he'd never taken one of those. so he went to the window of the room and "googled" it. right then. he said it was a little slow. but he'll let the doctor know.
wow.
that's bipolar disorder with psychosis for you.
and now school has started, classes are faster, there are more of them, but at least some of them are more interesting than last year (anything is more interesting than biochem...). The Derm folks are great - they're really enthusiastic, lecture really well, tell good stories, and are great teachers. Oncology has been cool because we have a different cancer each week, and they have a multidisciplinary panel come in and talk about a case, with "ask-the-audience" capabilities - we get a keypad and key in our answers, see the results, and talk about it. It really helps for the hot afternoon lectures when we have no attention span. Micro is hard. There's really no other way to learn about different bugs, what they cause, how patients present, and how to treat it than rote memorization. it's really difficult to get the big picture. we had a midterm today and it could've been a lot worse, but it was still pretty tough. what else are we taking? we have 6 classes for this block of 6 weeks. we have to do really comprehensive H&Ps this year with hospital patients, I have my first shot at the end of the month. My preceptor is a gasteroenterologist who specializes in endoscopy. I hope i get to see some procedures when i'm not with a patient. Pathology follows Oncology (i like that integration), and we're still getting the groundwork for pharmacology.
where else should this stream of consciousness go.....christian and i found a place in Sac. We got the keys today :). and my parents know about it. because christian talked to them about the future. if you know what i mean. Amanda and David will be visiting next weekend (even though we're 1/2way moving), and we'll finally get to go to Napa with them and Tammy! Erin should be visiting around that time as well :)
bed time, going to clinic tomorrow!
1 Comments:
ohhhhh! so excited to see you and visit napa! :)
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Tammy, at 10:12 PM
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