Piss on Bumight Day!

I dont know if I mentioned it on here, but I'm done with my pediatric rotation, and I'm rounding up my psychiatry rotation. As part of your grade, you have to interview a patient in front of an Attending, then present the patient. You get graded on both. I'd been feeling nervous about the interview the whole time and I finally did it today.

I went to go grab the patient I was supposed to be interviewing , the patient was schizophrenic. To put things into perspective, lemme give you background information. when naija people say "are you mad"? they are talking about schizophrenics.

First, psychotic patients are the toughest to interview, especially in a setting where you are being graded. Normally, I'd just have let him talk but in this situation, I had to ellicit certain information from the person.

First he thought that the EFCC were after him and had the satellite monitoring him. He believed he was a physicist and that the Nigerian government had given him 25 million naira which he donated to the hospital.

Every time I asked him a question, he would go round in circles and sometimes come back and answer the question, or just plain didnt answer my question. eg

Bumight: "so what brought you to the hospital"

Patitent: "there are different parts of the body. do you have an imagination?....I'm asking you a question. do you think before you talk"

Bumight: "The focus is on you right now, im..."

Patient: "i asked you a question...."

and on and on, and the interview dragged. Bear in mind that this was a timed interview. I had 30 mins to interview him, same as I would have had for a more cooperative patient. Anyways, so there were two of us being tested and the first person really got grilled by the attending physician. By the time it was my turn, he had left and so he had the residents grade me.

They asked me questions which I answered for the most part, and he kept going at it cos he was looking for a place to trip me and I wasnt really giving him much chance.

I felt so-so after the interview, but I wished the attending was there to grade me, cos I feel that the residents would be harsher on me because they would feel that I had it easier/more laid back oral exam. Of course the field wasnt a level one because I had a more difficult patient than my patner did, and she got a lot more pressure as it was the Attending that was grilling her.

This is not a pity post or a rationalization defence mechanism (cc Mizchif, lol) but I almost felt like I didnt have the opportunity to be happy about the outcome of my exam because of the difference in circumstance with my partner's exam.

To top that off, after the exam I had to go to clinic for another Attending and the secretary there was also trying to take a piss on me. trying to excercise her non-existent powers. like "twitch! step back you're NOT the doctor, u're just d freaking secretary!" Dunno why some people like drinking garri for other people's problems. I really had to hold my tongue, because if I had said something I'd have definitely ended up being in the wrong. She kept giving me side-eye throughout the day, like I cared! Anyways, that was my last day working with her, so I just brushed it off!

I'm going to write a proper post about about my experiences in psychiatry (Except you guys dont wanna hear about it - in that case I'll keep my stories of patients hitting on me to myself :D)

gosh! I've missed blogging.

Photo credit: here

PS: thanks for bringing it to my attention Sugarking, the description of my patient (written in bold) has obviously been changed (dude aint nigerian o! lol) but hopefully you guys get the idea. (delusions of grandiosity, persecution blah blah)