Hours are long, work is hard, and there's a lot of stress and responsibility that comes with the job.
So I don't envy Martin for what he does. At all.
Well, I do get a little jealous on just one thing. His patients adore him. They love him and they're appreciative of everything he does for them.
My patients, on the other hand, hate me.
Every day that they see me, they ask me when I'm gonna let them go home. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I have to say, "Nope, not today!" which causes them to go into hysterics, curse the parents that borne me into this world, and inevitably, will explicitly tell me how much they hate me. It doesn't matter how many times I try to explain to them that we're doing things to help them. They feel like they're being jailed, and I'm the jailer holding the keys.
And since we're on a locked unit, and I really am the one holding the keys.
Martin sees patients in clinic every Tuesday. Every time he sees someone he operated on before, they are profuse with their praise and admiration for his skills.
When I see repeat patients, it's because they went off their meds and they're crazy psychotic again and the police had to bring them in for trying to exorcise demons from strangers or for wandering into their neighbors' houses butt naked, or something along those crazy delusional lines. So when I see repeat patients, it's really to start the entire mundane process of titrating medicines, and listen to them curse me out for locking them up, all over again.
I know it's silly. Me, being jealous of a neurosurgeon. But I guess I would really appreciate it if I could have one patient give me some affirmation for doing what I do. Some tangible proof to point to and say, "See -- THIS is why I went into psychiatry."
As it is, I can't wait for vacation. Less than five days to go!
