Four-ward

Another week passes just like that and i'm done with my first week as a fourth year medic student. It's pretty amazing how the journey has been thus far. No doubt there have been great times but there were also moments that left me wondering if i've made the right choice. Nevertheless, it's time to move forward and leave the rather forgetable past behind. The fourth year would no doubt be intriguing and mind stimulating as new subjects would be taught and of course the much anticipated Orthopaedics posting would give me an insight as to whether it would be the right field to pursue in the near future.

As of now, i begin the new semester with Psychiatry. To me, it's not really something that extremely interests me but it's something great to study as it involves the study of the way people think and why they do so. As humans, we're special as we have emotions and also a great mind that thinks. Most of the time, these two subjects interact together to determine how we interact with our environment. Spending time in the wards speaking to the patients really gives me a new insight as to how psychiatric patients really are as people. There's no doubt that as a person who has never previously met a psychiatric patient, i used to stigmatise them and think that everyone in the psychiatric ward are mad and bonkers. Unfortunately, being prejudice, it never helped and my idea of them was pretty much wrong. Psychiatric patients are human just like us. They have feelings and would definitely not want to be in their state if they could. Sometimes what they suffer from is unexplainable and medication can only do so much for them. What these people need is just people who are open to hear what they are facing and care for them.

As i probed further while speaking to the patients, each and every patient is special in a sense that they present with different presentations. Some claim to hear voices and see things while others claim to be the prime minister of a country. I know it sounds rather bizarre to have such claims but that's the way they think and i believe they just need people to hear them out. Many of us ask why they actually think like that or present themselves in that particular measure. To my dismay, a huge proportion of them actually attribute it to things that we ourselves experience each and everyday. It is only that they have gone thru it in a much more traumatic way. A few jokes here and there about a person or even simple gossiping couldn't probably do much damage but in actual fact it could trigger someone to go 'mad' especially if it gets out of control. There are other instances where patients were backstabbed by people they trusted while others just never got a chance to explain themselves and were never accepted for who they are leading them to break down mentally.

Just by listening to what the patients have gone thru has really taught me a lot, not just about psychiatry but also a lot about myself. I guess i do get out of hand sometimes in my comments on others, with little knowledge that it could have such a big impact on another person's life. Reserving judgement, listening before speaking and just accepting a person for who they really are would definitely be something i would like to work towards to. I would willingly apologise to whoever i've hurt in the past with my comments if they're willing to accept it. And as for myself, i hope people will just accept me for who i am. It's an honest fact that i'm extremely fed up with people who have judged me in a wrong way and have never given me a chance to explain myself. All i just hope for is a chance to say a word just like the what the patients hope for, but unfortunately that sorta thing does not happen as some people are too stuck up and are already swayed by things which have already been said by others. I guess sometimes people who always act 'nice' aren't really that angelic after all. They may seem 'nice', but are they really practicing it by giving others a chance to speak before they judge them. It pretty much sounds like how we who look 'nice' as docs would pass judgement the first instance we see psychiatric patient. Just by giving them a chance to speak, a whole new diagnosis can be made and the patient's problem might eventually be less serious that it really is.

Well, it's another 4 weeks to go before the pyschiatry exams. Loads to learn and i hope to gain more insight into the subject as the days pass. Till the next post. Adios.

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