Quote:
When I was in college, I worked in a PCH that got many of its residents straight from Western Psychiatric Hospital. I worked overnights and was "charge nurse" so dispensed meds and took notes on the "residents." One of whom I had to involuntary commit one morning. Fun times.
It was not unusual for residents to have their meds adjusted over and over and over. The majority of the residents' personal docs didn't seem to either have much knowledge of drugs or drug interactions or maybe it was the inability to open a PDR or call a pharmacist or perhaps they just didn't care. More than one of our residents was suffering and our staff was told that the resident was in "end stages." In a few of those cases we could convince the family to switch docs to an actual physician specializing in geriatrics. Then all of a sudden voila! patient was better, not in "end stages" at all.
When I was finally done with school, I worked with MH/MR kids. I did behavior mods with kids with multiple diagnoses. Same thing with all the med changes and hospitalizations and crap shoot with docs.
It's just sad.
When my DD was having problems, we took her to a counselor and to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist is considered very good. He told us about a seminar he went to once where one of the topics was "Listening to Patients." He said that studies show that most doctors don't listen to what their patients are telling them. I think he is right. From what I have observed.
When I was in college, I worked in a PCH that got many of its residents straight from Western Psychiatric Hospital. I worked overnights and was "charge nurse" so dispensed meds and took notes on the "residents." One of whom I had to involuntary commit one morning. Fun times.
It was not unusual for residents to have their meds adjusted over and over and over. The majority of the residents' personal docs didn't seem to either have much knowledge of drugs or drug interactions or maybe it was the inability to open a PDR or call a pharmacist or perhaps they just didn't care. More than one of our residents was suffering and our staff was told that the resident was in "end stages." In a few of those cases we could convince the family to switch docs to an actual physician specializing in geriatrics. Then all of a sudden voila! patient was better, not in "end stages" at all.
When I was finally done with school, I worked with MH/MR kids. I did behavior mods with kids with multiple diagnoses. Same thing with all the med changes and hospitalizations and crap shoot with docs.
It's just sad.
When my DD was having problems, we took her to a counselor and to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist is considered very good. He told us about a seminar he went to once where one of the topics was "Listening to Patients." He said that studies show that most doctors don't listen to what their patients are telling them. I think he is right. From what I have observed.