[Moose72]

There are two posts in my blog that are especially of interest. They are from psych ER. If you go to my blog linked in my signature you can put in "psych er" in the search bar. The first post links to the second. The title is something about "2015 psych er report" if it brings up other posts. It should be at the top. At the end of that post is a link to the other one.

I thought you'd find it interesting to see what PDocs say in our reports of events we might talk about here too. The contrast. I wish I had more actually from times that I remember- like the time I thought everyone was an alien and could read my mind.

[*Laurie*]

I like your blog, Moose72. It is interesting to see your psych er reports. Kind of strange, how they box up everything in a neat little package. But that's so typical of western medicine, really.

[Moose72]

Originally Posted by LauraBeth

I like your blog, Moose72. It is interesting to see your psych er reports. Kind of strange, how they box up everything in a neat little package. But that's so typical of western medicine, really.

That's a good point! When I have a long story about everyone at the store being aliens that could read my mind they just write "psychosis. Believes aliens can read mind" when there was so much more to it! Thanks for liking my blog. Just today I was wondering who reads my blog. :-)

[*Laurie*]

Yeah, they pare it down to bare bones...seems they could or should give more information...a little bit of color and description.

[Moose72]

Yeah. The way they write things it makes it seem so much worse. Or is it so much worse and I just don't see it?

[*Laurie*]

Well, the way they record it just sounds so impersonal. As if...this is not a person, a life, but a collection of labels. Like cake with no frosting.

[Moose72]

I guess that's the way they stay detached. You don't want to be too close to your patients. It's easier to see the whole picture if you are detached.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

That's just medical documentation. You are taught to include everything but as concisely as possible. What happens is that you get so used to the format you use that you automatically use the same structure. It's been 5 years since I did an evaluation and I could probably write the basic format....I tried and actually did it but figured it was kind of boring so I didn't actually post it. But the narrative stream comes out without thinking. It's bizarre.

A lot of places have really specific rules about how much detail is documented and how so they feel more covered in the case of lawsuits. I know if I was told by someone that they wanted to kill themself my notes would be extremely specific in that area where I would simply note a hallucination existed and what it was and move on. Not because I didn't care but because it was more important to help the suicidal ideation and someone besides me was going to deal with the hallucination.

I have seen several evaluations my therapist has done for me for SSDI and when I went into voc. rehab. It was hard, especially the first time, to read some of it. The 2nd time he read most of it to me before he gae it to me because I was not safe to be upset and some of what he was writing was tough. Things like I lack insight, neglect hygiene at times, have problems solving problems, etc. Nothing I didn't know but it's a lot to see all at once.

I'd love to see my last ER report. I got stuff in the ER for 30 hours because there were no psych beds in the city. It was so loud and uncomfortable and I spent a lot of time reading a children's book on my kindle, making it seem like I could focus better than I really could. Then they gave meds wrong and I finally slept after complaining I couldn't sleep. But by the end I was in tears because someone in the next room was angry and violent at being brought in and he was scaring me and I was so over being in that little ER room where it was a special privilege to be allowed to brush my teeth after 24 hours and they couldn't give me my klonopin so I just cried. It was not an easy time and I was not in a good place to be stuck in the tiny psych ER for so long.