Psychiatry reflection

I personally chose psychiatry as my first clerkship posting as I am aware of my weaknesses in communication and interviewing skills. I am always anxious, stutter, and sometimes went blank during history taking sessions conducted in Clinical Foundation of Medicine. What better way to start my first clinical experience other than by going head to head with my weakest (among many) area so that I can improve on it before entering other clerkship postings? I believe, psychiatry clerkship is the way to go if you want to improve on your communication and interaction with patients, and not forgetting, the teaching clinicians.

I still remember vividly on my first day in the psychiatric wards where during the introduction to the female ward by the consultant, a patient came forth and she uttered something in a language that I could not understand. Then she suddenly grab my butt and walk away as if nothing happened. I was stunned. None of the people around me realized of the event that just happened. “Oh my god, I'm in for a nightmare here!” I said to myself.

The first patient that I approached was a 45 year old Chinese gentleman with history of heroine abuse. He developed schizophrenia and was brought in by the family because of abnormal behaviour. He was very forthcoming and cooperative. As I was talking to him, he admitted to hearing voices telling him to do good and be kind to others and as a result, he went around the city handing money to people. He is a taxi driver and would drive people to their destination without receiving any money but in fact, giving them money. Oh how I wish I was one of the lucky person who was on the receiving end of his kindness. Especially now, when the last scholarship money received by me was more than six months ago. But I know, it is unethical to manipulate my patient for money even though it is mutual between us. Even in the ward, he was moving around, saying good things to other people and spreading positive vibe to everyone near him.The interview with him went well, and it gives me confidence to push on since then. In addition, it restore my faith in humanity because even a person with mental illness can also do good, what more a healthy person like us?  

I move on and interviewed quite a number of patient since then to sharpen my interviewing and communication skills. My interest in psychiatry also develop as a result. It developed so much as when I was listening to the radio during my drive back home, an advertisement was aired and I could somehow relate it to psychiatric illness. It was an energy drink advert. A story about a couple who was on their way back to their home town from the city. The wife asked “you didn't have enough sleep yesterday, and now you have been driving for 12 hours straight, don’t you feel tired?”. The husband answered, “no, I actually feel GREAT! I feel strong and I could drive plus do many other things if I want to” he replied with an emphasized on the word ‘great’ and increase tone throughout. Well, that is a classic description of person in manic episode if you ask me. He have some classic symptoms such as elated mood, decrease need for sleep, increase energy, flight of ideas and pressured speech.

However, not all about psychiatry is a good thing. When studying about personality disorder, I became more judgemental  and started to categorized people based on their behaviour. But after a few days, I realized that what I did was wrong, and I just stop doing so after that. But that few days of being judgemental have helped me understand about personality disorder more than any amount of reading could. A golden sky at the end of a storm I suppose.

In the end, as I reflect on my experience in this clerkship, I finally realized that the event in the female ward was just an anomaly, never a usual thing to happen. Experience obtained during this clerkship is never a nightmare and my overall impression on psychiatry has improved a lot to the extent that I might consider doing this again in the future.

The Beginning

While having 2 weeks end of 2nd year break, I've decided to write again. I've forgotten the username and password for my previous blog, so after careful consideration, I decided to create this new blog.

I am Mohamed Hanief bin Khalid, soon to be 3rd year medical student of Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine (PUGSOM). Bet many of you haven't heard of the school, but believe me, it is a great school mainly because of its collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM), Baltimore, US. Yes, you read it right, the famous JHUSOM. Which runs the Johns Hopkins Hospital that have been the best hospital in the US for 22 years since the introduction of the hospital ranking systems in the US 24 years ago. But even though being a student of an institution that is associated with the prestigious school, I'm just an ordinary guy. Nothing much, just a mediocre student that manage to merely just passed every test that I took during med school. Not an overachiever like many other medical students that I know of. But Alhamdulillah, I've never failed any. I hope this passing streak will continue!

A father of a very cute, cheeky, 6 months old daughter, Sarah Hanaa. She was the light in my life since the day my wife was confirmed to be pregnant, some one year ago. Oh did I mention that I am married? My wife is a lovely doctor working as an MO in Kajang. She's somewhat an inspiration for me and one of the many reasons why I chose to continue my education in medicine even though I had a stable carrier before this. 

Enough blabbering about my family, now lets move on to why and what will I write in this new blog of mine. So I decided to write once more because of the way the curriculum was set and the evaluation in the third year of my training will be based not only on the various examinations, but also on our writings. Case write-ups, reflections on our experiences, write-ups on certain topics, just to name a few. I believe, writing is one of my weak areas, so I decided to train them by blogging. What will I write about? Hmmm..lets keep them open as we go. But the main theme would be about life events, my take on current issues, my passion (LiverpoolFC), what I've learned in medicine, and anatomy. Oh, why anatomy you might asked? And why anatomist as the title of my blog? What is so special about anatomy? 

My answer would be, why not? Anatomy is not interesting for you? It definitely is for me. It is the basis of human body to start with. What studying medicine is about. We need to know the normal, to appreciate any discrepancies from it. So anatomy plays a major role in our understanding of diseases. It is ok if you guys disagree, but I definitely think anatomy is the most important. Not to disregard other disciplines, it is just that I might be bias because of my anatomy background. I hold a Masters degree in Medical Sciences (Anatomy) from UKM, hence the title of blog ;p 

I think that is just about it, thank you for reading! Will update soon!