Had my first epic psychiatric patient encounter. The raised voices, police-involved, blood everywhere type of event. I don't really have much to say on the issue, apart from reflecting on the high social price of drugs and alcohol. I mostly got to stand around and take it all in and keep the scissors out of reach.
A lot of what I do here is 'taking it all in.' Medicine in general I guess. But this time seeing how the mental health act works in the real world, and how country hospitals straddle the fine lines of wanting to help but being woefully equipped to deal with serious acute mental health problems.
It's a tough job and in a small country town there seems to be potential for a high emotional toll, especially in that inevitable circumstance where the patient is your friend or at least well known to you. This rural GP thing has certainly proved quite insightful. There are a lot of super-nice doctors and nurses out here though. It's not the intellectual backwater you fear it might be.
Personally, I still have no idea if I'm learning anything or not. Or whether I'm just accumulating things that fall in to the life experience basket. But at least at the end of the year I'll have a lot of interesting tales to tell. Like this one:
Driving at 110 in the dark, I squashed my first rabbit the other night. Now my air-conditioner has this weird organic smell to it. Luckily the cool change is here. I'm just happy it wasn't a roo that darted out from the bushes.
No comments:
Post a Comment