It's not like I've never ever celebrated CNY before this, so what's up with all the sudden cravings , until I was so preoccupied by it before that, particularly on my first week of psychiatry posting.
But at least we get to talk to the patients here, unlike in India, where we only get to listen to the postgrads presentation during case conferences. Communication skills are definitely needed here, like, 100folds more than other departments. So, most of the time, in fact, ALL of the time, all we have to do is just talking, talking and more talking. A group of 14 watching 2 interviewers, my gosh, I've tried that myself, it was SOOO uneasy. Most of the questions asked were silly, for example "did you hear voices?" "did you see unusual things?" "do you feel like a king?" "what's the time now?" "where is this" etc etc, in malay (another problem I'm having). And we simply have to ask all those, despite of the normal mental condition of our patients. Imagine yourself being asked all these when the reason you are there is just stress and anxiety. Thus, needless to say, she gave me an annoyed look, and shook her head impatiently (She is a case of OCD*)
On the other hand, of course, there will be such patients. They hear sounds, see unusual things,
and have episodes of wildness / violation. First thing to struck my mind was spiritual of course, although the doctors denied it, and give drug prescriptions. Cultural differences DO matter in psychiatry I shall say.
The rest includes talking to an under-age motorcyclist who killed a 3-year old kid, he himself having memory loss with no sense of guilt at all, an uncle who took 30secs to react to the questions being asked, an aunty who referred herself as "Beta", a lady who did not give answers to the questions, but brought us around the bushes to get an answer, for "what's your name?", and a girl who tried 9 times to strangulate her dad on their way from KL to Melaka.
Ward rounds are equally dull, except that these are the chronically-ill people, and they lied a lot. I felt dumb at times being not able to differentiate true or false, until I discussed the case with the officers there, only to find out that I was being cheated once again. The worst thing was that I really even thought of calling his mum when he passed me a telephone number!!
One more week to go, I need to regain my interest in Psychiatry, I will not be discouraged by the system. YES. And i need more empathy. But..am I gonna succeed while I still keep yawning when the interviews are taking place. Boring Boring Boring.
Perhaps the most eventful incident so far was when Dr. S used a permanent marker to write on the whiteboard and frowned when he failed to rub it off. I still laugh a lot at the three 'A's he wrote on the board until now. LOL.
* OCD=Obssessive Compulsive Disorder
They are usually obssessed with something, like keep checking whether the door is locked, keep washing hands or keep bathing.
