Oh my gosh, psych is turning out to be really sad.
At first, there were sad patients, but many were also drug abusers, and that made it easier to swallow that they were homeless and had such rough lives for me. But lately, its been different. We have had so many young people in just terrible situations.
I the past few days I have seen:
- A 22 year old college student driving her car, hit head on (not her fault) and has been in the hospital for over 2 months and will never be the same (her parents have gotten divorced over the stress of the accident).
- A lady with a BMI of 11(no joke) who weighed 60 pounds. It was being investigated if her husband was abusing her.
- A man who got tied up with 3 of his friends (after robbing someone), and his three friends got shot and killed and he got let go. And has been in so many street fights and in and out of jail.
- A girl who was high on crack and had her baby on the floor of her house while she was high (so did not get medical help for a while), her baby got taken by the state.
- A girl who got pregnant when she was 12 and her mom beat her when she found out. The girl is now 20 and wants to have a relationship with her 8 year old son.
- A girl who thought her son was being molested, and we had to call child protective services.
- A 19 year old girl who just gave birth to twins, and has a 9 month old and 2 year old, and we were called for her cutting her self because she was stressed out (really??)
- A pregnant girl who asked how she felt about her baby said "I don't want it"
- And today, was literally the hardest patient I have seen, it was a fairly young girl, who had just gave birth to her 4th child. She had her at 4pm yesterday, and I saw her this morning and she had not seen the baby yet. When I asked why, she said she didn't want to because she did not know what to do with it (she kept saying it even though it was a girl), and it was just heartbreaking. She had not named her. She did not want her in the room. She was not aloof, you could just see her heart being broken. She cried throughout the whole hour interview, and just said how she doesn't think she will be the best mom for the baby. She seemed to genuinely want to better her life, but has three other kids (two who don't live with her) and is just spinning her wheels. She said the babies father has no interest in her or the baby. She is living with a friend, and braiding hair for income. She literally broke my heart. She was really open with me and I felt like I was talking to a friend, or a sister. We talked about adoption a lot, which praise Jesus, thanks to my avid blog reading, and research into adoption I was able to talk to her intelligently. I literally was holding back tears.
This is just so not God's design.
Babies are suppose to be celebrated, and loved, and prayed over.
Families are suppose to rejoice.
Dad's are suppose to be there to love and support their wives, and hold their babies.
I just kept thinking of that poor baby girl down in the nursery, perfectly healthy but no had been there to see her. No one celebrated her birthday yet. It literally just like broke my heart. I wanted to lay down next to my patient and just cry. Then I wanted to take her and her baby home with me. It literally just broke my heart. Mark and I have wanted to adopt, and this just confirms it so much. Detroit is so broken. I want to adopt more than ever.I think of my friends who are pregnant or recently had babies, and how much support they get, and how their families are so excited, and how they celebrate each milestone, and how if there is bad news - there are people around them to speak truth and support them. This girl had not told anyone she was pregnant and no one had been there to see her. She did not have a relationship with her parents or any siblings. No friends had called or came. So much brokenness.
Well, that is my sad story. But I really do love being in the hospital. I enjoy learning, and seeing patients and it's just a really fun thing. And, we do see lots of funny things still. Things that are a little less intense, and just pretty funny.
And, in other exciting news. I have a roommate! My little sister Jenna got an internship in Detroit this summer at Enterprise. It's great. We have never lived together outside of our parents house, and its fun! Minus the fact that in the first few minutes of her being here she opened the fridge and a whole carton of eggs fell on the floor and smashed. Oh yeah - I have a carpeted kitchen. Shoot me. Now we are trying to get the rotten egg smell out. Any ideas?
Other news: Mark has a phone interview Monday (also his birthday!!) at a church. Pray. We have literally gotten 530895 "no-you-are-great-but-not-enough-experience" letters/e-mails/calls. We are ready for a yes :)
Brittany
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
First Rotation!
I started my first rotation yesterday - and it's psychiatry at Detroit Receiving Hospital.
And....
I LOVE it!
It has been awesome. I honestly love being in the hospital and seeing patients, and my preceptor is so great.
Here is what our days have been like so far:
- Park about a mile from the hospital and take a shuttle with other medical students to the hospital.
- Try and remember where we are suppose to go.
- Wait for our doctor to come in and quickly tell us we are going to see patients (and we literally have to pop up and start our sprint).
- Follow our doctor (a psychiatrist) around (at practically a run) and he asks us questions all day, and we dont know very many answers - but he is patient and teaches us - and then re asks us later in the day (and we usually remember the answers).
- See interesting patients including: a patient who is seeing cats running across the floor in his hospital room, a patient who thought he was brought by a boat with his friend (which I assure you he was not), a patient from prison who had banged his head and cut it open and keep picking open the stitches with his nails, a patient who had attempted suicide with drugs with her boyfriend (who died), a patient who had voices telling her to kill herself with rat poison, and a patient who wanted a new room because there was a "big, black, insect hanging from the ceiling".
- Continue to chase around the doctor all day - by now my legs and feet are killing.
- Try to answer his questions, while furiously writing things to look up later in my little notebook.
- Eat my packed lunch in this little back office and totally enjoy sitting down. Use the restroom - we dont have any time to all day. I am pretty sure he would not slow down to give us enough time to use the bathroom.
- See other patients including combative patients who need medications adjusted (usually increase in Haldol), patients who are way too sedated with their medications (usually decrease in Ativan), patients dealing with tough diagnosises (we saw and amputation, and a girl who just had a stillbirth).
- Watch our doc do wonderful interviews with patients. When they say crazy things, he just listens and clarifies. He asks them if they know where they are, who they are, and what the date is first with everyone. Then he asks "how the voices are", and if "they see any family members in the room with them at the time", "if anyone is telling them to hurt themselves", and always asks about suicidal and homicidal ideation.
- Get a lesson in something, yesterday and today it has been depression. The doc actually takes time and prints us a PowerPoint and gives us a lesson. Which this is pretty awesome, because he does not get any reimbursement from Wayne for having students, and I am sure he must get paid a lot if he would see patients, so it is pretty great he is taking time to do this!
- Done! Ahhhh, so great. My legs and feet can hardly move.
- Take the shuttle back to my car. Battle crazy Detroit drivers and get back to my apartment.
Eat. Study (and read blogs). Sleep (yesterday I went to bed at 7:30, and had to force myself to stay awake until then -pathetic I know!)
We get to start seeing our own patients on Thursday (and charting) in the morning and then do rounds and present the cases to the doctor in the afternoon. I am pretty excited - and a little nervous!
And....
I LOVE it!
It has been awesome. I honestly love being in the hospital and seeing patients, and my preceptor is so great.
Here is what our days have been like so far:
- Park about a mile from the hospital and take a shuttle with other medical students to the hospital.
- Try and remember where we are suppose to go.
- Wait for our doctor to come in and quickly tell us we are going to see patients (and we literally have to pop up and start our sprint).
- Follow our doctor (a psychiatrist) around (at practically a run) and he asks us questions all day, and we dont know very many answers - but he is patient and teaches us - and then re asks us later in the day (and we usually remember the answers).
- See interesting patients including: a patient who is seeing cats running across the floor in his hospital room, a patient who thought he was brought by a boat with his friend (which I assure you he was not), a patient from prison who had banged his head and cut it open and keep picking open the stitches with his nails, a patient who had attempted suicide with drugs with her boyfriend (who died), a patient who had voices telling her to kill herself with rat poison, and a patient who wanted a new room because there was a "big, black, insect hanging from the ceiling".
- Continue to chase around the doctor all day - by now my legs and feet are killing.
- Try to answer his questions, while furiously writing things to look up later in my little notebook.
- Eat my packed lunch in this little back office and totally enjoy sitting down. Use the restroom - we dont have any time to all day. I am pretty sure he would not slow down to give us enough time to use the bathroom.
- See other patients including combative patients who need medications adjusted (usually increase in Haldol), patients who are way too sedated with their medications (usually decrease in Ativan), patients dealing with tough diagnosises (we saw and amputation, and a girl who just had a stillbirth).
- Watch our doc do wonderful interviews with patients. When they say crazy things, he just listens and clarifies. He asks them if they know where they are, who they are, and what the date is first with everyone. Then he asks "how the voices are", and if "they see any family members in the room with them at the time", "if anyone is telling them to hurt themselves", and always asks about suicidal and homicidal ideation.
- Get a lesson in something, yesterday and today it has been depression. The doc actually takes time and prints us a PowerPoint and gives us a lesson. Which this is pretty awesome, because he does not get any reimbursement from Wayne for having students, and I am sure he must get paid a lot if he would see patients, so it is pretty great he is taking time to do this!
- Done! Ahhhh, so great. My legs and feet can hardly move.
- Take the shuttle back to my car. Battle crazy Detroit drivers and get back to my apartment.
Eat. Study (and read blogs). Sleep (yesterday I went to bed at 7:30, and had to force myself to stay awake until then -pathetic I know!)
We get to start seeing our own patients on Thursday (and charting) in the morning and then do rounds and present the cases to the doctor in the afternoon. I am pretty excited - and a little nervous!
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| This is the beautiful Detroit Receiving Hospital - very interesting there! |
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| Here is Harper Hospital - which we haul to like every other patient, what a walk! |
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