During my Psychiatry Rotation I worked at an inpatient unit at Elmhurst hospital. Because it was inpatient, I was able to follow many patients for the entirety of their stay. Being able to see how the patients progressed, and how they differed after treatment, provided a great educational angle. It allowed me to not only see psychosis and other mental illnesses, but also how these illnesses respond to medication and therapeutic treatment. Throughout the rotation, I found myself improving at communicating with the patients. Because many of the patients were not based in reality, getting them to open up, without propagating their delusions, required experience and skill. There was one patient on the unit that demanded being called by a completely factitious name and claimed he is Jesus. Although I didn’t want to feed into his delusion, I realized that the only way I was going to get him to talk to me was to call him by the factitious name. Another new experience was writing psychiatric progress notes and H&Ps. Although the goal of these notes is the same as medical notes, the focus and treatments are very different. Additionally, it was my first time giving and documenting mental status exams. In the beginning out found myself outright thinking about all the different questions and aspects covered in the mental status exam during each interview, but towards the end of the rotation I was able to tease out the information from practically interview. My most memorable pt was a 20 y/o female with schizoaffective disorder who had a traumatic history of sexual abuse and exploitation. She had minimal support from her family and was essentially on her own. When she came in, she was completely disorganized and psychotic, bu she had an incredible drive to turn her life around. She did very well on her medication and was being placed in a therapeutic group home toward the end of my rotation. Although she is likely to face many future challenges, what struck me about her was the dramatic change in her during her 2 months stay in the unit, and her drive to change her life. The most significant thing this rotation taught me was about human interaction, and how different approaches to talking to someone can lead to completely different results. That is a skill that I plan on using throughout my other rotations.

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