To those of you who weren't diagnosed until you found yourself in the hospital, how did your diagnosis go?

In my first experience it was basically a student (I'm not even sure what year but they didn't identify themself as yet a doctor). I was asked to answer a series of surveys. I then saw a psychiatrist for no more than 5 minutes who announced my diagonosis of Borderline Personality Disorder.

I then ended up rehospitalized elsewhere and was seen at length by both psychiatrist and residents and given the diagnosis of bipolar - which seems to be correct.

Based on what you you wrote I'd say bipolar. I say this due to a psychiatrist making a diagnosis in 5 minutes, which leads me to believe the psychiatrist probably had the biases of anchoring and overconfidence. Anchoring bias is when a therapist or psychiatrist puts too much weight on a first impression, and overconfidence bias is when a therapist or psychiatrist puts too much faith in his or her own knowledge and opinions.

I hope this helps.

yep I'm pretty sure it's bipolar too.

What, I wonder, are the experiences of others regarding students? This is with particular respect to hospital and diagnostic experiences.

The fact the individual at the first hospital didn't identify herself as a doctor tells me she wasn't yet a resident even. It really irked me that the diagnosis was likely made based on her observations - particularly as it was incorrect.

I was much more confident about the circumstances with my other hospital visits (different province). I spent a great deal of time with residents and students and saw a psychiatrist for significant periods both alone and with the team.

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I used to go through a lot of psychiatry residents. Not one of them mentioned me being bipolar. They put me through a gamut of ADs but nothing would work. The last one said I could go back to work after having been hospitalized for depression and anxiety, and I was still having panic attacks.