End of psychiatry rotation.

09-24-06-->09-30-06

Hello all!

This week has been the last week of psychiatry rotation. It’s amazing how fast this experience has gone by! Besides being exposed to different psychiatric conditions, I have learned a few things I would keep for the rest of my life:
1. Interviewing skills! I started feeling like I conducted the longest H&P in the world, but ended up feeling very confident in interviewing patients and actually enjoying myself a whole lot!
2. Understanding that the more I put in, the more I learn, and the more I enjoy. Not that I didn’t know this before, but… it was so pronounced this time around! I really put in as much as I could in and just loved the learning process.
3. Never underestimating myself or put myself down! This is actually the biggest thing—I don’t want to sound pompous, but what I found was that I know a lot, have great work ethics, have good abilities, and always have room to learn. I will work very hard on keeping that in mind when I encounter situations where I feel like I don’t know anything (which naturally occurs at this state of my education.)

With mom’s encouragement, I made brownies to everyone at the unit. The brownies turned out great, and everyone told me I should sell them and pay for med school that way :o). I told Ronit that the brownies were a family secret from… Ruth Sirkis (for my non-Israeli readers, Ruth Sirkis wrote many excellent cook books that are still used in most Israeli Kitchens). Ronit had a good laugh, and I explained the joke for the rest of the staff and they just looked at me funny. Oh well… To mark the end of my rotation, and the end of the resident’s time at the unit, Doctor R. took us to a nice restaurant yesterday. That was so nice of him!

I have many good things to say about this rotation, and I can definitely say that I have gained a lot from it.

Do you know what my body decided to do on the free weekend I have this week? I have caught an awful cold! I felt quite horrible at work yesterday. I tried not to breath on patients and kept washing my hands like I had OCD. Oh well…I guess it’s the beginning of flu season. It is very gray outside at the moment, and quite chilly. I stepped out with Vega not too long ago and was very happy to have my nice cup of tea with me to drink as I was walking with her. Brrrrrr!

Well, I am going to go make some Matzo Brie for a small get together we are all having—perhaps it’s not traditional to make this for a party, but I didn’t get a chance to buy some potato chips or something of the sort to bring… so they’ll have to deal with trying new food.

Enjoy the week; I’ll give you an update regarding my family rotation next week.

Tzom Kal, VeGmar Chatima Tova,

Reut