Rotation roundup: psychiatry

So I never seem to get to these on time.  So help me, it’s the med student semi-professional procrastination taking effect.  I also had 12 hours of driving over the weekend.  So mleh.

With psychiatry, we end the B track, now heading into the “core” rotations of pediatrics, general surgery, and general internal.  And while I’ll miss the more chillaxed B rotations, I’m ready to get going and finish up the rotations I doubt I’ll enjoy as much.

So with that, I give you the latest rotation review!

Double standards

I’ve been on psychiatry for 2 weeks now, with another month left to go.  It’s been pretty interesting so far – you see everything from severe depression to psychosis to borderline personality disorder.  And of course the scarier stuff like overdoses, suicide attempts, and withdrawal.

I certainly didn’t expect it to be as chill as it is.  On the wards, at least, most people have been there a while and are most of the way to getting better.  It’s not a lockdown ward where I work, so we don’t see much in the way of (I hesitate to use the word) “dangerous” presentations.  As in, we don’t have any wanderers or overtly violent people, just a group of people most of the way to getting well.

But I have noticed a pattern, especially amongst those with chronic depression and suicidality.  For lots of them, the reason they come to us is a severe drop in mood precipitated by relationship troubles, often divorce.  You see it with patients who have schizophrenia, too, but there are fewer of them to begin with so it’s harder to tell.  I may be painting with awfully broad strokes, here, but I think it speaks to a deeper sickness within society.