#7 - More thoughts on Medicine

Ok, I may or may not be writing this in the 30 mins before it's meant to go out, so apologies in advance if this is a particularly poorly written and uninteresting instalment. Quantity > quality thought, right?

I started doing a bit of Assistant in Medicine (AIM) work in an inpatient Psychiatry ward and I tell you what, the pace is such a change from ED that it almost feels like you're moving backwards.

It's such a stark contrast, where in ED you quickly get a history, do an examination and instigate management within 30-60 mins, before moving onto the next patient. In Psych, you may not have even finished your history within that time.

It also kind've feels like you're not doing much for the patient, simply titrating their medications. It's one of the difficult things about Psych, that your patients are often quite unwell and the goal is not to get them to 100% fit and healthy, but simply to get them to a 'functioning' state. Compare this to ED where, for example, you could tangibly help someone in a relatively short period of time by relocating their joint after it had dislocated.

Even after only a day working there, I'm no longer sure whether Psych interests me.

I think it was always the human psychology aspect, as well as the lifestyle and training program, that drew me towards Psych.

But again, I've got to stop jumping to conclusions after a single day. Maybe that was an atypical experience.

As you can tell, I flip flop between specialities with extreme regularity, but I know I need to give things a proper go before I rule them out.

I expect that by the end of my 12 days in Psych, I will have a reasonable idea of whether I want to pursue this speciality or not.

Resource #1 - Tweet

If you only do one thing today, it should be to click on this Tweet thread and read it.

It's an important insight into why we need to prioritise our loved ones. We may not have as much time with them as we think we do.

Resource #2 - YouTube Video

In last week's email, I said I'd talk about what speciality I was interested in and the topic was so important (to me) that I decided to make an entire video about it.