Psych in PR

Our first week of psych has wrapped up! It was a relaxing week because nobody had any work to do. My textbook won’t be in till next week, which is a curse and a blessing because it means I can’t do any work this week and get to relax, but next week, I’ll have a lot of catching up to do.

Surprisingly, I don’t hate psych. We haven’t gotten too deep into the lecture material, but so far it’s been interesting. Even if I never go into psych, I will always have patients with psych disorders and issues so this material is really important. My first two days of clinical were great. The first day was at the Day Hospital, which is an intense outpatient program for people recently discharged from the inpatient unit. The group of up to 22 veterans meets Monday-Friday from 8-3. They have therapy with the RN and social worker and have activities during occupational therapy. OT was really cool to observe. I never realized that there was OTs who worked with mental health patients. The therapist interviews the patient and finds out what activities they loved to do before their mental illness took over their life and encourages the patients to participate in those activities again. Some of the things included painting, building a tool box, and drawing. The OT tweaks the environment so that if something goes wrong, it will happen in a controlled environment and she will help them deal with the problem. This whole concept was fascinating to me. Mental health problems are so serious and it’s comforting that there are such awesome people who devote their careers to help these people.

The next day, I was on the inpatient floor. I spent the morning passing meds with the RNs. That’s pretty much all they do here. After that, I visited OT again and then played dominos with some of the patients. It was so rewarding to make them smile and talk to them. Some of the patients were around my age, but the age ranged up to 85 years old. I am surprised by the set up of the unit. The patients don’t have a lot scheduled therapy or groups. It seems like the reason the patients are there is to basically simmer down until they are no longer a threat to themselves or others and they can be discharged to outpatient therapy. If I was on the unit, I’d go crazy! These patients need more of a schedule in their day, and we are going to hold group sessions for them throughout the semester. I’m really excited to talk to the patients more.

I hear that the foliage is at its peak right now and I’m so sad that I’m missing it! I will never take another day of cool weather for granted again. Today it’s 77 degrees and rainy and it’s so refreshing.

Back to psych for me! Hopefully I don’t catch any of the ailments … I’m already enough of a weirdo. Until next time!