At 8AM Dr. Fletcher started seeing some of his patients. In two hours I saw two children with Asperger's Symdrome who also threw violent tempers at their parents and child psychiatrists, I also encountered a teen boy who's drug habits were causing him to go on violent rampages.and one (of many) adolescents who wanted to commit suicide. What's interesting about her was that she sounded like she was recovering, heck I was even convinced, but Dr. Fletcher told me that there is a difference between parroting what the doctors say and actually internallizing the message and changing one's lifestyle because of it. Being in the clinic made me realize 2 things:
1) There are a lot of children that need psychiatric help than it seems that are in these centers
2) There are way too few child psychiatrists and child psychiatry centers for these children
Another sad thing I learned about this field is the fact that sometimes life (insurance companies) aren't fair. For instance, the inpatient centers are temporary (max a few weeks) patients. However, some patients need long term care and treatment. In theory the transfer of a patient should be easy and only need the recommendation of a psychiatrist,however this is not the case. A patient has to have had two separate instances which caused them to go to an inpatient clinic before the psychiatrist's recommendation for transfer to a long term institution is recognized. So really you are "hoping these patients fail" so that you can give them adequate care. I know--it's a bit sick. Now technically a patient doesn't need to go to have two instances before a receiving long term care, a patient could just instantly be transferred to a long term institution, however the patient would have to pay for it, and those types of institutions are definitely for the financially wealthy. It's a harsh reality of a side of the medical field.
I'll honest, I was kinda scared of the place.Primarily I didn't know what to expect. But it was kind of interesting. I study autism and Asperger's syndrome ( a form of autism) and seeing the patients and how/why their diagnosis could be affecting their behaviors was kind of fun ( in a nerdy way) to think about. I got to talk about my observations with Dr. Fletcher.
When I thought the day was done, it had only begun. Dr. Fletcher then took me to his private practice where he meets his outpatients. He had many patients ranging from ADHD to depression to bi-polar disorder and mood swings. Again, I did not know there could be so many things wrong with the human psyche. Kind of made me want to make sure that I check my mental health status. When it was lunch time I found out that Dr. Fletcher actually skips lunch which wasn't good for me since I had already skipped breakfast because I had to get up early ( and I honestly just don't like breakfast) so I really needed to eat lunch. Thankfully a drug company representative came today and provided everyone with lunch while trying to sell his company's drug (more on that later). The end ended off well with a success story. A Butler University student diagnosed with ADHD was in his final year of schooling and majoring in astrology. He had just come back from a conference in which he along with his cohorts had given a presentation of their research. He currently is a student teacher for a class at Butler. He was having no problems with his medications and felt that he was doing well with them. Just comes to show that with everything in life,there is always a light at the end of the tunnel in the practice of medicine.
At the end of the day, I became less scared of the field of child psychiatry and more understanding of it. It's definitely a field that is not exposed to the public enough and there are complications in the field,as in any field. However, at the end of the day I found that the success of one child is worth all of the struggles and disappointments of ten (if not more) I guess that's one of the reasons why Dr. Fletcher is able to go into this hectic field of psychiatry everyday. I hope that one day I can find a field that I can be proud to wake up and go to everyday and care about the one child that I improve his/her life.
Quote from Dr. Fletcher: " No one will take your patients because no one wants them. So there's security in that"
