The consult/liaison psychiatry service at Ben Taub was pretty busy through June, but I worked well with my three incredibly awesome teammates to get the job done. 🙂 The oral exam last Thursday was a friendly reminder of how short a 30-minute presentation really is – I felt like I…
Tomorrow afternoon, the last 20% of my psychiatry rotation’s grade will be determined based on my ability to watch a 30 minute videotaped patient encounter, prepare a presentation, and then orally deliver the case with an accurate differential diagnosis and treatment plan.
At 4:45pm on Friday afternoon, I left the VA after four works of working in the outpatient psych clinic. I was privileged to have an extremely insightful and approachable attending who motivated me to grasp the basics of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment and empowered me to ask questions.
Part of the psychiatric mental status exam (MSE) involves commenting on a patient’s physical appearance. Does the schizophrenic patient appear disheveled? Does the depressed patient still maintain his hygiene? While these are subjective assessments, I’m able to make them with confidence and accuracy.
Sleep changes go hand in hand with common psychiatric conditions like depression and mania, but before jumping to drugs to help you catch some Z’s, psychiatrists try to understand an individual’s “sleep hygiene” – the personal habits and environment associated with sleeping.
Depression is the most common psych condition I’ve come across during my time at the Veterans Affairs hospital. It permeates all age groups and has etiologies ranging from the loss of a family member to uncertainty about the future; in spite of this tremendous variability, two things seem to always…
Today I had the esteemed privilege of interviewing a veteran in the psych clinic. I also had the rare experience of witnessing this prototypic American warrior — an individual trained to show no fear, experience no pain, and survive at all costs — break down and bawl uncontrollably at the…
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is routinely used to treat refractory depression and catatonia, especially in the elderly where pharmacotherapy could result in undesirable side effects. Essentially, it involves jolting the brain to create a controlled clonic seizure – the patient loses consciousness, has convulsions, and cannot recollect the procedure. I had…
Over the past week, I’ve sat in on several group therapy sessions for those coping with depression, treatment-resistant mental illnesses, and bipolar disorder. Going in, I was expecting run-of-the-mill conversations – “Hello, my name is _____, I have _____, I’m learning to cope with it.” Truth to be told, I…
For the next two months, I’ll be hearing the most intimate details of my patients’ lives. I will come across those who have lost their grip on reality, those in a situation so dire that they prefer death over life, those who are dependent on substances like alcohol for day-to-day…