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- Apr 6, 2004
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Very busy night with the waiting room about 10-20 deep after the holiday. I was just moving folks and covering the psych area.
Pt in the psych area came in with hallucinations after smoking "weed" called Anthrax. I'm thinking its one of the synthetic drugs that are popping up. She's a college sophomore. I talk to her and she says she has been seeing 'things', but isn't at this time and can't describe them to me. Really flat affect, staring at the floor, won't make eye contact. Denies SI/HI or any other complaints. I clear her for the psych screener. The screener gives me a bit of guff about this being a cut and dry drug abuse and that it doesn't need a psych screen. For some reason, I really pushed for the screener to talk to her. I guess it was because her demeanor didn't fit with the synthetic weed behavior I am used to seeing.
After about 2 hours the screener came to talk to me about the patient. It turns out the patient was gang raped 1 year ago after just starting her freshman year at college. Since then she has begun drinking heavily, doing drugs, and become depressed to the point of wanting to kill herself. We got her an appt the next day with counseling and therapy. The screener gave me a pat on the shoulder and said she was glad I pushed for her to talk to the patient. Otherwise, the pt never would have revealed what had happened and what was truly happening in her life.
It really made my night to know that something had bothered me about her enough to insist on further evaluation by the psychiatrist, and because of that, we had found out enough to really help her.
Pt in the psych area came in with hallucinations after smoking "weed" called Anthrax. I'm thinking its one of the synthetic drugs that are popping up. She's a college sophomore. I talk to her and she says she has been seeing 'things', but isn't at this time and can't describe them to me. Really flat affect, staring at the floor, won't make eye contact. Denies SI/HI or any other complaints. I clear her for the psych screener. The screener gives me a bit of guff about this being a cut and dry drug abuse and that it doesn't need a psych screen. For some reason, I really pushed for the screener to talk to her. I guess it was because her demeanor didn't fit with the synthetic weed behavior I am used to seeing.
After about 2 hours the screener came to talk to me about the patient. It turns out the patient was gang raped 1 year ago after just starting her freshman year at college. Since then she has begun drinking heavily, doing drugs, and become depressed to the point of wanting to kill herself. We got her an appt the next day with counseling and therapy. The screener gave me a pat on the shoulder and said she was glad I pushed for her to talk to the patient. Otherwise, the pt never would have revealed what had happened and what was truly happening in her life.
It really made my night to know that something had bothered me about her enough to insist on further evaluation by the psychiatrist, and because of that, we had found out enough to really help her.
