Friday 9 February 2007

talking for a living

Psychiatry so far is a little bit like falling into thick treacle. Have had to slow my brain right down so it doesn't particularly expect me to be doing something all the time. As I had been warned it is a completely different pace of life. But maybe it needs to be so you have time to process and deal with the volume of heartbreak or craziness that can come out of just one patient when you ask them everything about their life, which is pretty much what you have to do to take a psychiatric history. I know craziness is not a very politically correct word to use and I'm sure that sometime soon I will be saying "this person is suffering from paranoid delusions with a formal thought disorder due to drug-induced psychosis" with the best of them, but just now my immediate gut reaction seems to be "wow, this person is really mad". Think I will enjoy it, certain I will enjoy having more time for my life outside of work. I can even do my on-calls from home! Hoorah for being able to sleep in my own bed with mr me and just going in if I'm needed!

Has been wintry weather this week - snowed yesterday and there's a severe weather warning out again tonight, which has meant that me and my sister have cancelled plans to drive down and see my grandad in Hertfordshire this weekend. Maybe not strictly necessary, but I think he would have worried a lot about our journey. Much more so than if one of our husbands was driving us, I suspect. But then Grandpa is 89, so I suppose I may overlook his old-fashioned attitudes and not mind. Especially as mr me tends to be a much more confident driver than me, so I suppose he is right in a way. Anyway, we will rearrange to go down and see him soon. Will be nice to have a weekend with no active plans. Mr me had got used to the idea of having a weekend on his own, so perhaps I will go round to my sisters' and watch TV and drink wine...

2 comments:

Mad Medea said...

Well done for getting through you first week or so in Psychiatry. Wish I could join you and sis for TV and wine. MM. xx

Amy said...

A lecturer used the term "mad or bad" today which encouraged me about the times I can't find anything better to describe someone's behaviour than "wappy"...