or as most call it, the geriatric psych unit. or even shorter – the gero-psych unit. while i haven’t yet experienced the nudity, it seems to be a pervading theme when other people tell me about it. and don’t misunderstand me – i have no desire to experience it either.
apparently there is something about dementia that it correlates closely with the elderly taking off their clothes and running around the psych unit. my first day was rather uneventful, but i’m looking forward to some of the oddities that i was able to see before on 6100 at general.
from my limited day (it was a half day today), i did manage to witness an elderly woman who would sneak into the other pts’ rooms and take their stuff. she would then roll these things into a sheet and carry it around on the floor, the whole time denying she did this when the nurses questioned.
otherwise, i anticipate this to be a rather uneventful week. most of the time, it seems the old people just sit in their “geri-chairs”, as they are called, and watch tv.
tomorrow, i have my csa (clinical skills assessment). this will consist of me interviewing two fake patients, “collecting my thoughts”, then presenting and discussing my findings with a psychiatrist who watched the whole ordeal. unfortunately (or fortunately), my interview is being observed by the clerkship director. while the exercise itself is only pass-fail, it provides me one more opportunity to impress her. i will admit, i have been studying extremely hard, but i think a lot of it has to do with my basic interest in the material as opposed to an overwhelming desire to honor (that’s definitely still present though). we’ll see. regardless, it means i’m done at 2.
update: apparently, there is currently one elderly woman on the floor who chronically and purposefully takes off her clothes because she likes the security guards. her other method of getting security called on her to flirt? hitting the other patients. hilarious.
