What's a typical day like?
- Thread starter Zyvox
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Its probably going to highly vary per program.
However since I'm assuming you want enough info to differentiate between other fields....
I usually don't handle severe medical issues, and should they arise, medicine takes over.
I usually don't have a "danger" period such as often happens in other fields where a procedure was done or physiological phenemonenon has occurred & the pt has a high likelihood of complication or death for several hrs to days.
At night, you usually don't have someone coding and you got to take care of i, so you're up all night. (might happen like once a year).
This makes life much less stressful.
I don't have to do procedures.
One of the "drags" with the job is you deal a lot with borderline, histrionic, & malingering patients. I don't mind these now, but as a first year I found this highly irritating because my attendings never agreed on treatment for these patients...
So I would do what 1 attending would tell me to do--then another attending would chew me out for it. After about 2 years of it, I just told thems something to the effect that they have no right to get mad at me because I did something I was ordered to do. I told them if they had an issue with it, they need to complain to the other attending. Actually worked. The attending then would back off.
Sometimes you have to do a consult for a completely non-psychiatric reason because the requesting doctor is lazy or frustrated with their patient, and should handle the problem themself but won't.
E.g. just yesterday I had to do a consult because a patient complained to their doctor (IMHO a legitimate complaint too). The requestind doc wrote down "anger management" as the reason.
Days are usually 9-5--but this can vary per program.
However since I'm assuming you want enough info to differentiate between other fields....
I usually don't handle severe medical issues, and should they arise, medicine takes over.
I usually don't have a "danger" period such as often happens in other fields where a procedure was done or physiological phenemonenon has occurred & the pt has a high likelihood of complication or death for several hrs to days.
At night, you usually don't have someone coding and you got to take care of i, so you're up all night. (might happen like once a year).
This makes life much less stressful.
I don't have to do procedures.
One of the "drags" with the job is you deal a lot with borderline, histrionic, & malingering patients. I don't mind these now, but as a first year I found this highly irritating because my attendings never agreed on treatment for these patients...
So I would do what 1 attending would tell me to do--then another attending would chew me out for it. After about 2 years of it, I just told thems something to the effect that they have no right to get mad at me because I did something I was ordered to do. I told them if they had an issue with it, they need to complain to the other attending. Actually worked. The attending then would back off.
Sometimes you have to do a consult for a completely non-psychiatric reason because the requesting doctor is lazy or frustrated with their patient, and should handle the problem themself but won't.
E.g. just yesterday I had to do a consult because a patient complained to their doctor (IMHO a legitimate complaint too). The requestind doc wrote down "anger management" as the reason.
Days are usually 9-5--but this can vary per program.
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As for borderlines....if you work with them enough, you realize that when you work with a non-borderline they seem perfectly normal and well adjusted!
-t
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I don't mind borderlines now unless they're en massed into a large group (can happen during group therapy). One to one I can manage them fine with no problem now. I figured out how to set limitations, not get upset, and even help them therapeutically while not giving into their petty demands.
As a group, it can be like herding cats.
As a group, it can be like herding cats.
