I realize it's been a while since I've written, and between exams coming up and the busy June I've got lined up I don't know when I'll write again. I may as well put my early mornings to good use.

I spent the last month on the psychiatric inpatient ward, which also included some time in the outpatient department. Because of limited resources, the people who arrange to get themselves admitted in the unit are really quite ill. Schizophrenia that's not responding to treatment, bi-polar disorder that becomes destabilized... I'd say 80% of the inpatients I saw fit into one of those two categories. It was an interesting month, to say the least. Besides learning about the pharmaceutical options of treatment, which are mainstays here but a relatively small part of the job, I also got a peek into the multidisciplinary approach they take here to mental health. Again, only with the sickest of the sick. The MDT meeting I went to consisted of a few psychiatrists (one consultant, 2 trainees) a couple of community nurses, a social worker, an art therapist, and maybe a couple of others. They talked about all of their cases, and made sure that living arrangements, medications, home visits, and social/activity lives were all maximized.

Now that that's over I'm headed into 3 weeks of exams. 2 next week, 3 the following week, then one more right before I come home. I land in Boston on the 1st, and then head out to a Trads reunion in St. Paul for the weekend, before I start my month in the Baystate emergency department. Hopefully I won't see any of you there!

Not much of an update, I understand. Such is life.