Ep. 174: Psych Is Over… But I Might Be Back (Part 1)

In this week’s episode, Jazmin wraps up her psychiatry rotation in medical school and shares what made the experience so meaningful. From learning new approaches to patient care to seeing different perspectives within psychiatry, she reflects on how much she’s grown throughout the rotation. Jazmin talks about what she loved most about the experience and how it has even sparked an interest in potentially pursuing psychiatry in the future. 

Tune in now for your weekly Dose!!!

************

Make sure you’re following your girls on IG @apotentdoseof3, and @lindathefnp

Please don’t forget to rate, comment and subscribe to A Potent Dose Of 3 on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you would like to be a guest on the show or have any stories/topics that you would like for us to talk about you can email us at apotentdoseof3@gmail.com or DM us on IG.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

You're now listening to a Putin Dose of Three with your hosts Linda, Jasmine, and Kathy, and we're here to bring you your weekly dose. Hey, hey, hey, it's your girl, Linda. Just kidding, listeners. Anyway, you know it's what time it is. It's that time when you tune in to a potent dose of three. Welcome back. Thank you for being consistent and listening to our podcast. Uh, so today in this episode, we well, we would like to put Jasmine back in a high hot seat because she has a lot of things going on regarding her clinicals and med school and everything. So, Jasmine, let's get into this episode and tell the listeners what you've been up to.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Hey everyone. Um, I've been so I'm now done with my psychiatry rotation, but I really enjoyed it. Um, I went in kind of thinking that I wanted to do it, and then now that I'm done, I feel like even more, I feel like I do belong there. I loved coming in, experiencing different things. I also feel like being in this field, I feel like there's a more human aspect, like a more humanistic aspect that I can touch into. Um, you know, because mental like a lot of psychiatry is dealing with mental health. And something I was thinking about is like Linda, you and I, I feel like we always put mental health at the forefront of the things we do. And so I was like, wow, actually that tends to align with like, you know, how I view things. And this field could be like it's that. It's it's literally doing that. And um I really enjoyed being there for patients, you know, when they were in their most heaviest moments, and then even like I appreciated patients who didn't know me and who were able to open up to me and talk about, you know, their suicide attempts or um just what like the heaviness of what was going on in their lives and being able to be a source of comfort and even you know offering them resources that they could use to get through it. Um, while it was like really heavy things to deal with, I felt okay and felt prepared and felt like I could handle it, and I could see myself doing this long term. Um, I have mentioned this before, but I'm an empath, so I feel things very deeply. And I think that really allowed me to connect with patients on a different level that maybe others wouldn't be able to. Um, but that's just how I felt. Like I was, I felt like I was able to really connect with my patients, and um I really, really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Well, you had mentioned that you're an empath, and so am I, but I I did want to just to to just like more so understanding like how you felt as an empath, because you're like in an environment where um people are like receiving like help or treatment for their mental health. Um, you you see a lot of things, schizophrenia, um bipolar disorder, I don't know, psychosis, whatever you're you were seeing in the clinic. Did you did it have like a more pull on like oh, like I hate that they're in this position, or no, I didn't think that way.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

I the way I saw it was, you know, like I felt really, really bad that they went through the things they went through. And I know life is really hard and we all have different experiences. I've gone through my fair share of, you know, bad things, and the patient has gone through their fair share of bad things, and I see it as um it's unfortunate that they had to go through that, but it may shape them in a different way. Um, like to be able to come to me, right, and be able to tell me all this, it takes a lot of courage to be able to tell someone so something so deeply. And for me, I feel like everything they went through, they they've gotten some sort of strength. And I know a lot of people would be like, wow, like I a lot of people wouldn't see it that way, right? A lot of people like look at them, they ended up in, I don't know, maybe like a psyche D. But for me, like for them to be able to come get the help they need voluntarily, and then be being strong enough to be able to be open about what it is that's causing them their issues, is very hard to do. Like it's very hard to it's it's very easy to be like maybe not even easy, but it's easier to say, like, I'm depressed, and then when you're getting evaluated, be like, okay, what do you think it is? And I've seen a lot of patients where they won't open up, but this patient literally like was able to tell me things that happened to them in their childhood, you know? And it was very deep things, and so for me, I was like, wow, this patient's very strong. They knew they had a problem, they're here and they're opening up in this environment, you know, and they don't even know me. So I I personally was like, wow, they've they're so strong. And but I it the empath part, I just felt like energy, you know, and I felt some heaviness. I felt like the heaviness that they were going through. Um, but I was able to use that to really motivate me to find resources, like to go above and beyond, I think, what was expected of me. Because I remember when we were coming up with like an action plan for the patient. Um, the patient had mentioned, you know, I don't want to do therapy. It didn't work for me. And um, not that I was trying to push, you know, therapy on them, but I know that I've been in situations where, and I've seen multiple people be in situations where they've done therapy and they're like, I don't like therapy, but I know that therapy is like dating, right? And so I remember trying to use a story that the patient told me about how, you know, they had a previous partner and that partner was not good to them, and um, they weren't with their partner anymore, and now they have a new partner, and how that partner, like they have a really good like relationship with them. And so just trying to find ways to kind of I guess um find parallels to explain, you know, dating and like uh therapy like that normalize it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

Normalize it challenges, it's not gonna always be straightforward. You have to, you know, date. You may like this when you may not, you have to keep on going until you find your match. That's my go-kind as well.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Exactly. And so like I remember telling the doctor, because you know, um, as a as a med student, we propose um uh like what plans we have for the patient. And that, you know, when I mentioned the patient did like therapy, um they're like, okay, well, we can try this. And I was like, but I was I told the doctor, like, I was thinking of talk talking to the patient and talking about this and you know, maybe doing this and finding these words resources. And the doctor was like, you know what, yeah, go for it, you know, and so for me, it's being able to, I think being able to connect with the patient in a different way that allows me to care for them and provide them care beyond what I feel the surface level um conversation, maybe if that makes any sense. It just allowed me to dive deeper into caring for the patient, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I'm happy that you're able to like try and to find a way to connect with your patients because it's important to also build that rapport, right? Um, I have a question. For you, was it heavy emotionally? Because I know sometimes um you'll see in certain like or you know, uh I guess departments, you'll see heavier things than in others. Was it heavy for you? How do you deal with it? Like at the end of the day, how do you not take some stuff home with you? Did you take stuff home with you?

SPEAKER_03 8:14

Yeah, that was kind of that was kind of what I was trying to ask too. But I think maybe Kathy just formed it a little bit better because I, you know, because you're an empath and like how did you deal with the emotions and was it negative, was it positive? What Kathy said.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Yeah, um I did see a lot of heavy stuff. Um, but I didn't take it home with me this any of these times. But I know that it's bound to happen. Like I know it's bound to happen. Um, I think the reason why I didn't take things with me is because the plans that we had for the patient I felt were very hopeful, like being able to connect them with um psychiatric resources outside of the hospital or um um not discharging them and um getting them into like an inpatient psych psychiatric unit. Um but I do foresee having some hard times with some of the patients um because it was really heavy stuff. Like I it was like a lot of um, you know, it was where patients would like hurt themselves, um, you know, or they would be on um drugs and like cause like serious harm to themselves. And so it was really heavy, but I think the reason why I I didn't take it home with me was because they were getting the heck the care they needed um and they were progressing. We had a patient who um was under the influence of drugs and hurt themselves, and then they started to develop nightmares um of the incident that they had never had prior, right? Those nightmares they had never had those um nightmares before, but since the incident, they were having them. And so they were in the process of developing PTSD. With PTSD, um, which is post-traumatic stress disorder, it usually happens after a um like traumatic event, and then you'll have um continued um intrusive thoughts and um avoidance, you'll you'll have like you'll be in like these states of hyperarousal, and it happens after your the event happens one month after, and so the patient was starting to develop some of the the symptoms of it, and we were able to um go in every day, and we were able to um provide medication that was able to basically stop the nightmares and they stopped having the nightmares, and so that was really good because when I was talking to the attending, they said that if you're able to curb the nightmares, you're able to basically reduce the chances that the patient will develop PTSD. And so for me, like while the the um initial event was really sad and very heavy, um, it was a positive outcome that we were able to prevent the patient from, you know, go um developing PTSD because PTSD can be very, very difficult to deal with. So I think the reason why I wasn't taking things home was because a lot of the things that we worked on, we were able to be effective in helping the patients manage their symptoms.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

I really like that you formed it in that, like you you formed it in that light. Um, instead of looking at it as in a negative light, you know, like they are there because they had some some form of like a mental health crisis, or like you, the example you gave regarding the PTSD, and that the reason why you you didn't take it home because at least they're there getting help. They in they're in the right place at the right time to receive the treatment they that they need to get better. And like there's some that don't even go to that step where they receive the help and the treatment that they need to manage their their their mental health. Um yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

But I definitely see myself getting, you know, I think undoubtedly we're all gonna be affected by our patients in some way. Um, you know, I wanted to bring something up. It's it's it's a little different, but I remember when we were talking about um, you know, like, oh, like what are your hopes of like and what are your fears when coming into psychiatry? And um one of the things that I talked about was like, oh, you know, I'm not gonna be hard on myself. I'm gonna give myself grace and um I'm gonna, you know, tell myself that, you know, I'm still learning and um not be hard on myself. But like without a doubt, I still had trouble. Like I remember coming in when I finished my ED rotation, I switched over to a new rotation. So I went into consult psych and it was a lot more difficult because in consult psych, um, I was basically the way it worked is um every department in the hospital, if for some reason the patient like developed um confusion or um delirium or anything like post uh post-treatment. So like let's say the patient was an orthopedic patient and some reason they got out of surgery and they developed confusion. Um, our job was to offer um like offer kind of like steps that they should take to kind of figure out what was going on with the patient. So like certain blood work, certain like um scans or something, right? So like could the patient have gone out of um orthopedic surgery and and developed um confusion? Was it um pre-existing confusion? Did they do they have like a um a mood disorder? Uh was it just delirium, or was it that they're actually elderly and the surgery precipitated um like some like Alzheimer's symptoms that they were they they're currently, you know, in the process of developing. So like my job was complicated because it's pretty complex stuff. And so when I first started, I felt so inadequate. I'm not gonna lie. Like I remember be feeling like, what am I doing? I don't know anything, like um, feeling like kind of like I wasn't helping, I wasn't doing anything, I didn't know what I was doing. Um, and there was, I think, two days or maybe even three days within the first week where I felt really, really bad. And then I was like, no, Jasmine, we told ourselves that we are learning and you know that this is part of the process. And so I had to like basically pep talk myself. I had to give myself um positive like self-talk to be able to get through it. So it does it does happen, right? You you can tell yourself, I'm not gonna do this as much as you as much as you want, but it happens. And so I see, like you mentioned, Kathy, um, there probably will be days where I'm treating patients and I'm going to take some of that home with me.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Now looking back that you're done, what was one of the most memorable sorry experience that these whole like rotation um had for you?

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Dang, that's a really good question. There was a lot of memorable experiences. Um I have to pick one.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

Jeez. You can you can do two. You can do more than more than one. Um usually people who do that, that's because they can't think of anything, so they're trying to sell it. No.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

No, no, no. No. Um, I would say we had a patient who was from um out of the country and they were receiving pro bono surgery, and um they developed like a um acute onset, like manic-like symptoms, I'll say. And we were trying to figure out um if this was bipolar disorder, if this was precipitated by their most recent surgery, if this was um uh behavior that was normal for their the patient's stated age, um, it was very interesting. And the and I was actually heavily involved because I was the only Spanish-speaking patient. And so I was like, this was my patient. Like, this was my patient. Um, and so I had to figure out what was going on. And while like the attending was there, while the residents were there and they were able to like um ask questions that they wanted via through me, um, I was the one that was able to really like communicate with them. And so um being able to diagnose the patient and be like, I think they have this, and then having the attending agree with me, I think was pretty, pretty cool. Cause I was like, Are you kidding me? I'm like, I'm brand new. I'm able to I was able to figure this out, but it was really hard because there's so much to take into consideration because um we didn't we could only we could only take what the patient was giving us and we didn't have um um information from the family members to be able to kind of gather evidence, right? You don't just take re the sources from one, you gather from like everything, and so we weren't able to do that. So trying to figure out what was real, like is the patient lying to me, which the patient lied to me a lot. Um I and that was actually a lot of fun to try to figure out what is a lie, what is a true. So it was really like um it was a puzzle that I was trying to navigate myself, and I really enjoyed it. And being able to properly diagnose a patient with everything that was going on was really cool. It was really cool. Being just being a med student and having the attending agree with like your diagnosis, I thought was really cool.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

And what was the other one? I thought you had more.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

The there are more. Um, I'm just trying to figure out how to say stuff without like being too descriptive. Um, I'm gonna go with that one and then I'll try to figure out how to state the other ones if that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

Okay. Well, I guess I have another another question until then. What so first rotation, first clinical experience when you're, you know, around your attendings and and um residents. Did you make any connections with anyone um around you? Um, how was it working with doctors? Like uh aside from the patient side care side, I do want to hear more so how you worked with other providers because that can be kind of tricky.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Yeah. Um, I liked my rotation more than I thought I was going to like it. I was like, uh, I have to do a lot of like socializing, blah, blah, blah. Um, I feel like I used to be really social and with COVID and going to med school, I've become really not as social. Don't want to say antisocial because that means a whole different thing in psychiatry. Um, but yeah, I'm not, I found myself not being as social, but because I liked psychiatry so much, I was able to easily be social with both residents and with the attendings with the residents. Um I hold that thought.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Stay tuned for next week's episode.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Thanks for listening to this episode of PD3 with your hosts Linda, Jasmine, and Kathy. Make sure you like, comment, and subscribe at a putting dose of three so that you never miss an episode and your weekly dose.