Mohammed Alo Blog: Medical student, doctoring, osteopathic, Chicago, stories and adventures 2013-03-01T21:40:11-05:00 Copyright 2004-2005 Ublog Reload 1.0.5 Mohammed malo@thealo.com http://www.thealo.com/maloblog/blog_comment.asp?bi=17 2004-08-14T08:21:47-05:00 2004-08-14T08:21:47-05:00 2004-08-14T08:21:47-05:00
I call it Psycholiday because, it was quite a holiday. Coming from Cook County IM department to this type of laid back lifestyle was really easy. It was fun going to school on Wednesdays pretending to be psychotic while classmates try to diagnose and talk to you. Fake group therapy sessions, and tons of lectures on drugs. Very exciting stuff.

Oh, well.... On to Radiology!!!
]]> Mohammed malo@thealo.com http://www.thealo.com/maloblog/blog_comment.asp?bi=20 2004-07-28T07:27:06-05:00 2004-07-28T07:27:06-05:00 2004-07-28T07:27:06-05:00
So I start the interview totally blind, "So how are you doing today?" I ask teh young man. The mom answers and explains how well he is doing.

"How has your medicine been working for you?" He says, "Fine" then moms fills in teh rest of the story. She goes on and on about how well he has been doing. She tells stories about summer vacation and on and on and on.

She tells us about Disney cruises and free french fries, and Disney World and tons of fun stuff. She keep sgoing.

Eventually, tehy leave and are very very happy.

So the doc turns to me and asks, "So what do you think?"

"I don't want to go out on too far of a limb, but it seems like the mother has Munchusen by proxy (factitious by proxy) syndrome."

"Exactly"

Wow. So basically, the boy is pretty ok. The mother is the one that uses him to gain access to medical staff, attention, and to feel good about herself and get reassurance. But since the kid is the "identified patient" you can't do anything. It's very theraputic for her. Apparently, the father died about 7 months ago.

Wow]]> Mohammed malo@thealo.com http://www.thealo.com/maloblog/blog_comment.asp?bi=14 2004-07-26T05:22:36-05:00 2004-07-26T05:22:36-05:00 2004-07-26T05:22:36-05:00
During orientation they explained that these are among the most manipulative and deceitful patients... ie teh kids/teens. We were warned not to give them any info about us whatsoever... in fact, our ID badges only have our first name on them.

So teh first day, we watced the psychiatrist interview about 7 kids all of which had major issues. Everything from depression, to violence, to substance abuse, to suicidal, to parents abuse teh kid, so he is safer in teh ward.

This was all bizarre to me. Many of these kids appeared "normal" but once you see them in action or read their history... watch out.

The next day I was at the pediatric psych out patient clinic. I sat in on all teh sessions that the psychiatrist had with all the kids and their parents. Psychiatry is not psychology. It is not a therapy session. I am beginning to understand the flow. A crazy kid is referred to a therapist or psychologist for therapy. Then the therapist sends them to the psychiatrist (a physician) who prescribes medication, adjusts doasages and recommends medications. The psychiatrist does not spend hours with each patient talking about their childhood or issues. So I am glad for that.

Sometimes when you see this kids and their parents... it's hard to tell who is the patient. Usually, the kid is the "identified patient" but in fact, it's teh parent that needs to be teh patient. But you can't tell teh parent that... or else you lose your patient.

Also I found out that there are only 6000 child psychiatrists in America... and we need 35,000... so there is a huge demand. You can't get an appointment with one for 3 or more months. That's how busy they are.
]]> Mohammed malo@thealo.com http://www.thealo.com/maloblog/blog_comment.asp?bi=15 2004-07-22T05:24:05-05:00 2004-07-22T05:24:05-05:00 2004-07-22T05:24:05-05:00
Of course the fear is over diagnosis of ADD, and unnecessarily putting kids on drugs, but trust me, some of these kids are way beyond the ADD stage and should get treated. Bad parenting and ADD make a terrible combination... and then teh kids end up being trailer trash, druggies and losers... everyone wonders what went wrong.

Not to throw the blame entirely on genetics and chemical inbalances (ahh, the joys of inbreeding) of the kids, also, many of the adults in the community have serious coping issues, fixation, post-traumatic stress disorder, scatterbrain, inability to focus, reaction formation, impaired judgement, inability to react logically or rationally, paranoid, hsitrionic, egocentric, subconscious overuse of defense mechanisms (rationalization, displacement, intellectualization, suppression, fixation on targets) and one parent is almost schizophrenic... more of a schizophrenoid.




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