Question for the psychologists

[yalepa99]

I'm a PA in the ER. One of the most frustrating parts of this work is the people who come in with anxiety or depression and "need to talk". In the ER, I don't have the luxury of that, or I'll have tons of patients waiting to be seen after 30 minutes. How would you deal with this situation? I don't feel comfortable prescribing meds when I've never seen the person before and have no follow up with them and I don't have the time to listen to someone who thinks they NEED Paxil because they've been "depressed" for 10 days.

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[lazure]

First, assess whether they are a suicide risk. If they are not, let them go with a few pamphlets of local psychologists/social workers who do psychotherapy. Also, find out about cheap therapy options available through local training clinics in psychology at local universities. If they feel like talking to someone "right now", there are probably local distress phone lines where they can talk to volunteers and find out about mental health options in their community.

 

[yalepa99]

great ideas. thanks. except i'm in northwest wisconsin, and the nearest college is probably 2 hours away. but the rest are definitely options.

 

[LM02]

great ideas. thanks. except i'm in northwest wisconsin, and the nearest college is probably 2 hours away. but the rest are definitely options.

I'm completely unfamiliar with Wisconsin, but most counties/regions have a community mental health center that you can refer to. They often have 24 hour crisis lines so that you can give patients a phone number.

http://www.namiwisconsin.org/library/directory/directory_list.cfm?category=Consumer&type=list

 

[50960]

Your hospital should have a psychologist on staff who could be paged to deal with these issues. Do they?