life in the psych ward

There's a lot that goes on in the West Tower (Mental Health Ward) of the Jail.  Much of it isn't really fun to talk about, which is my excuse for slacking on the blog updates lately.  Lots of suicide thoughts, painful back-stories, just lots of stuff nobody should read and I don't really want to write about.  But this week has been really interesting!

Tuesday - Went to Juvenile.  Thought it was going to be fun, and it might have been if the first 2 patients I saw were these two punks.  The "diagnosis" is called "Oppositional Defiance Disorder" and it basically is a psychiatric condition of being a snot-nosed, disrespectful delinquent.  Can you tell how sympathetic I am towards teens suffering from this horrible disease? Please.  Granted, most of these kids have drugged-out parents and pretty rough childhoods, so they don't exactly have the raw materials to become decent citizens.  Still, it's an easy decision for me to choose a different area of medicine to spend my career.  I'm just not patient enough for that kind of attitude.  There are plenty of kids with actual conditions that I'd love to take care of, but I didn't get to witness any of those.  So I'm pretty much done with that idea.

Wednesday - Visited Zale-Lipshy (a hospital) to check out a really interesting treatment for patients with long-standing severe depression... Electroconvulsive Therapy.  VERY COOL!  That morning, I met 3 medical students who were also there to observe ECT.  The four of us met up with the treatment team who explained the treatment, then the patient was anesthetized.  Electrodes were then held to the patient's head and a seizure is induced.  There's very few contraindications, side effects, and the treatment works really well!  One 82 year old patient, with major depression since age 6 (wow), had ECT in 1977 and it didn't recur for almost 15 years!  Beats meds if you ask me.

Today - Talked to a guy who was SUPER DUPER delusional.  Man oh man, he went on and on about this knowledge he has to make meth for really cheap, to make revolutionary electric car and plane batteries (an idea he was presenting to the Marines), to cure heroin addicts using purified OxiClean, and, without getting into too many specifics, was related to the creator of the Mexican Mafia on the west coast.  Yeah... lots of stuff going on with this guy.  In fact, the floor officers were chuckling about the guy before we even saw him. "Oh man, you'll love this patient... verrrry interesting..."  First time I've seen that kind of unbridled psychosis.  Good stuff!

In non-rotation news, I'm really enjoying hanging out with my Jr High youth group guys.  We're playing some paintball this weekend!  Can't wait!

grace & peace,