What makes psychiatry challenging, but also exciting...

Tuesday, the 28th September, 2010

It is Tuesday, holah! I love Tuesday for the main reason that I can have extra 30 minutes of sleep. As you can realize now, I love sleeping, something normal for a new grad. Anyway, on Tuesday I wake up at 6h30 am, do my morning prayers for 15 minutes before breakfast, which at this time takes about 20 minutes before morning change of shift staff. It is almost the same game every Tuesday morning. This Tuesday is a little special though. I have on my agenda two delegations to make: sending blood sample to the lab and renewing a prescription of one patient who is usually followed by another clinic. I have in my mind the person I have to send; however for some reasons, this person is not there. For confidential reasons, I have to do it by my own. In addition to the appointment I have planned to meet with some parents, I am trying to see how to accomplish all those plans in my morning schedule.

After the staff I usually have my meeting with the nursing staff to give the tasks and assign patients. After the staff, I delegate one nurse to do blood draw as I do the rounds to patients.

At 9h30 AM, I am off to the clinic for blood analysis and renewal of the prescription. This is somewhere 12 km away from our hospital. The interesting and at the same time sad part is that it took me the whole morning to be ready with those two activities. In some general clinics, you have to wait till you get tired! Emergency in your eyes is not always emergency in his/her eyes.

It is noon already and I am back at the hospital. As I arrive, two parents are waiting for me to discuss about financial difficulties they have. At the same time, I am tired and hungry as my lunch time is nearing. It has been hard to make it always at the table. After receiving the parents I close my office off to take my break. It is about 1PM.

At 2:30PM I am back in my office. Together with the pharmacist, we are creating a program to facilitate a good inventory of medications. As I mentioned ahead, one of my responsibilities is to supervise our pharmacy, to make sure that everything is being done in order.

It is already 4PM, and in five minutes I have a staff meeting together with the day shift and night shifts to exchange the activities of the day. Today, the meeting goes on till 4:30PM and everyone is getting ready to go home. As I return to my office, I remember that I had to go the general hospital to take the results of the labs and then pass to the pharmacy in the city where to usually take our medications. This usually doesn’t take too much time.

At 6:25PM I am back at the hospital with medications. As I enter the pharmacy, one nurse comes to me to inform about one patient who had refused his evening medication and aggressive and now who is being held in the isolation room because of an attempt to escape. The nurse asks me what to do…I prepare myself to call the physician and ask her to prescribe something. As the phone is on the voicemail, I inform the nurse to continue the observation for another 2 hours to see if the patient will calm down.

It is 7:15PM; I am sitting at the table starting my supper. Five minutes later, the nurse on the night shift calls me for another patient who can’t be found anywhere. So what? He just escaped! It is night and nowhere can he be found. As opposed to what we usually do, this time we can’t do any miracle. Usually, in cases like this, we try to trace out and mostly we succeed to catch the patient before he/she goes far. But during the night we are limited. I just can’t do anything more.

At 8:00PM I am watching news on TV getting ready for my sleep, the only break I have for the day. How I wished the night was longer! Anyway, I just have to go.

Good night everyone.

Jean-Clement, RN, BSN