- Joined
- Apr 8, 2018
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
- 9
When I was growing up, I had always thought I'd want to be a psychiatrist. I then experienced significant emotional and, at times, physical abuse at the hands of a family member, and that family member ultimately committed suicide. This whole situation is incredibly complex and not really something that I should get into here. In any case, this led me to believe that I should not go into psychiatry for multiple reasons. The first is that I was worried the emotional baggage that I received would take away from my ability to give my future patients good care. I've learned since then that this is not necessarily the truth, but it did keep me away from pondering the specialty for a long time. Second, the inpatient care my family member received was not good, and the treatment team let them return to our home despite being a risk to those of us living there. Her treatment while inpatient was ultimately inadequate and chalked up to other medical complications despite their LONG history with mental illness. I did not want to become a physician that would let something like that happen. Again, I've learned that some things are unavoidable, and my one bad experience is not necessarily reflective of the field as a whole. Third, I struggled with the knowledge that psychiatric conditions are often not the direct result of some neurobiological departure from normal. Rather, many often are more related to society, strongly contributing to and worsening mental illness. This is still something I have not overcome, and I doubt I will because it seems to be a more universal truth. Even now, on my psychiatry rotation, I have a patient who is admitted because they are homeless, leading to severe depression with suicidal ideation on top of anxiety. With more social support, this patient likely would not have developed these conditions, and they certainly would not be as severe as they are now. With these things in mind, I have set up a wonderful application for general surgery, which I love.
During the first two weeks, I fell in love with psychiatry. I adored the patients, their stories, the material, and even doing practice questions. I felt that I was able to have a positive impact on my patients, even just through letting them talk and share with me. I worked more closely with my preceptor and started to transition my plans to apply psychiatry. That is how much I loved those first two weeks. Then, over the next few weeks, I have found myself to be exhausted after leaving the hospital around 3:00 PM (and we don't come in until 9:00 AM). I've been more tired on this rotation than I was on general surgery and my busiest rotation where I was independently seeing and writing notes for 20-30+ patients from 7:00 AM until 7:00-8:30 PM Monday through Saturday. I am starting to reconsider my options again because of this. I don't necessarily dread going to the hospital every morning, but I also don't look forward to it. I understand that the lifestyles of general surgery and psychiatry are incredibly different; however, these are both invasive and intimate specialties, albeit in different ways. I just am trying to collect more information or opinions I suppose. I don't really plan on using an online forum to make my decision, but I am thinking that maybe this could give me some other options to consider.
During the first two weeks, I fell in love with psychiatry. I adored the patients, their stories, the material, and even doing practice questions. I felt that I was able to have a positive impact on my patients, even just through letting them talk and share with me. I worked more closely with my preceptor and started to transition my plans to apply psychiatry. That is how much I loved those first two weeks. Then, over the next few weeks, I have found myself to be exhausted after leaving the hospital around 3:00 PM (and we don't come in until 9:00 AM). I've been more tired on this rotation than I was on general surgery and my busiest rotation where I was independently seeing and writing notes for 20-30+ patients from 7:00 AM until 7:00-8:30 PM Monday through Saturday. I am starting to reconsider my options again because of this. I don't necessarily dread going to the hospital every morning, but I also don't look forward to it. I understand that the lifestyles of general surgery and psychiatry are incredibly different; however, these are both invasive and intimate specialties, albeit in different ways. I just am trying to collect more information or opinions I suppose. I don't really plan on using an online forum to make my decision, but I am thinking that maybe this could give me some other options to consider.