- Joined
- Feb 27, 2015
- Messages
- 24
- Reaction score
- 6
Hello! MS3 en route to MS4 here. So I really enjoyed my psych rotation and rotated at quite a few sites that allowed me to get a hang of different aspects of psych: VA inpatient, VA outpatient, addictions, inpatient adult, consult and liaison. Each one had aspects that I liked and didn't like but overall I came out of the rotation with a positive experience and excited about exploring the possibilities for matching into the specialty.
Something has been bothering me lately. I know a big part of psychiatry is being a good listener and talking with patients. It's one thing that I've enjoyed on every rotation, listening to people's stories, and obviously a major tenet of psychiatry. I've found myself, however, when out in the "real world", every once in a while, when faced or in the vicinity of someone with obvious psych issues, sometimes growing a sense of, I guess, annoyance in my mind. For example, I'm at coffee bean right now, and there is a guy who has been talking the barista's ear off for the last 20 minutes about a bunch of stuff, and I'm just sitting here thinking to myself, thank God I'm not that barista. Another time, while studying at a Starbucks, I engaged in a convo with this man who was clearly schizotypal and quickly within a matter of minutes realized that I needed to find a way out of the convo, otherwise I'd be there for forever. Even in some social situations, I find myself running out of small talk and just sort of patiently waiting to move on.
So I guess my question is, is this worrisome? I feel like in a clinical or inpatient context, I would be happy to sit down and talk or listen to these folks, but my sort of indifference and sometimes borderline annoyance of them outside of the clinical setting worries me. In most of these types of situations, I usually have something else that I'm working on and thus don't have time to sit down and engage in some lengthy conversation. Anyone else have thoughts or experiences like these? Is this just being human? Something to worry about as a future psychiatrist?
Something has been bothering me lately. I know a big part of psychiatry is being a good listener and talking with patients. It's one thing that I've enjoyed on every rotation, listening to people's stories, and obviously a major tenet of psychiatry. I've found myself, however, when out in the "real world", every once in a while, when faced or in the vicinity of someone with obvious psych issues, sometimes growing a sense of, I guess, annoyance in my mind. For example, I'm at coffee bean right now, and there is a guy who has been talking the barista's ear off for the last 20 minutes about a bunch of stuff, and I'm just sitting here thinking to myself, thank God I'm not that barista. Another time, while studying at a Starbucks, I engaged in a convo with this man who was clearly schizotypal and quickly within a matter of minutes realized that I needed to find a way out of the convo, otherwise I'd be there for forever. Even in some social situations, I find myself running out of small talk and just sort of patiently waiting to move on.
So I guess my question is, is this worrisome? I feel like in a clinical or inpatient context, I would be happy to sit down and talk or listen to these folks, but my sort of indifference and sometimes borderline annoyance of them outside of the clinical setting worries me. In most of these types of situations, I usually have something else that I'm working on and thus don't have time to sit down and engage in some lengthy conversation. Anyone else have thoughts or experiences like these? Is this just being human? Something to worry about as a future psychiatrist?