- Joined
- Feb 19, 2003
- Messages
- 3,505
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[rant]
Ok, I'm being provocative....but I'm also serious.
I'm working (including call) 70-80 hours/week on the inpatient unit, and I'm feeling like this will never end. Granted, I didn't really have an interest in child psych prior to this rotation, but now I must say that if there was one iota of interest left in me from a profession-choosing standpoint....it's been thoroughly squashed.
You can't scratch your butt without getting consent from a parent who hasn't had contact with their kid for 5 years, since you never have a court paper stating that their parental rights were terminated. As a result of this, kids go 4-5 days without medication change due to the social work and legal snags.
The kids are in school all day, and the teachers get pissed if you take them out. When I get there at 8, they're in class, if you get there before 8, you can't bother them because they're in "transition," or they're sleeping. Every admission requires a family meeting, and every discharge requires another...usually with 3-10 people present, including the parent (if they are allowed to have contact with the kid), the social worker, their social worker at the foster agency, the school principal, the teacher, the ACS worker, the foster agency representative, possibly a grandmother, and sometimes more.
The kids themselves are fine. Too bad I barely get to see them.
Another thing I hate is spending all day on the phone....in child psych, you better learn to love it, because you'll be making dozens of phone calls a day to get endless collateral on every admission...sometimes being required to call the same outside source multiple times to get medication histories, etc.
Add to this required case presentations, consents for everything you can imagine, unending seclusion paperwork, and evaluations for "tummyaches and headaches," and you want to just get up and walk out.
On top of all this, nobody is ever quite sure what the diagnosis is (bipolar vs. ADHD, anyone?) (Does childhood Bipolar even exist?), and use almost prozac and risperdal exclusively, thanks to legal-induced defensive medicine.
The interesting part of the work is that you can see these patients and know how your current adult patients 'got the way they are now.'
I acutally look forward to call nowadays, so that I can enjoy the post-call day mostly off. I've considered volunteering for more call for this purpose. That should tell you something.
I feel like anyone who voluntarily wants to do this on an inpatient basis is insane.
[/rant]
Ok, I'm being provocative....but I'm also serious.
I'm working (including call) 70-80 hours/week on the inpatient unit, and I'm feeling like this will never end. Granted, I didn't really have an interest in child psych prior to this rotation, but now I must say that if there was one iota of interest left in me from a profession-choosing standpoint....it's been thoroughly squashed.
You can't scratch your butt without getting consent from a parent who hasn't had contact with their kid for 5 years, since you never have a court paper stating that their parental rights were terminated. As a result of this, kids go 4-5 days without medication change due to the social work and legal snags.
The kids are in school all day, and the teachers get pissed if you take them out. When I get there at 8, they're in class, if you get there before 8, you can't bother them because they're in "transition," or they're sleeping. Every admission requires a family meeting, and every discharge requires another...usually with 3-10 people present, including the parent (if they are allowed to have contact with the kid), the social worker, their social worker at the foster agency, the school principal, the teacher, the ACS worker, the foster agency representative, possibly a grandmother, and sometimes more.
The kids themselves are fine. Too bad I barely get to see them.
Another thing I hate is spending all day on the phone....in child psych, you better learn to love it, because you'll be making dozens of phone calls a day to get endless collateral on every admission...sometimes being required to call the same outside source multiple times to get medication histories, etc.
Add to this required case presentations, consents for everything you can imagine, unending seclusion paperwork, and evaluations for "tummyaches and headaches," and you want to just get up and walk out.
On top of all this, nobody is ever quite sure what the diagnosis is (bipolar vs. ADHD, anyone?) (Does childhood Bipolar even exist?), and use almost prozac and risperdal exclusively, thanks to legal-induced defensive medicine.
The interesting part of the work is that you can see these patients and know how your current adult patients 'got the way they are now.'
I acutally look forward to call nowadays, so that I can enjoy the post-call day mostly off. I've considered volunteering for more call for this purpose. That should tell you something.
I feel like anyone who voluntarily wants to do this on an inpatient basis is insane.
[/rant]