Slow Day on the Job

Today was more of a slow day. The psychologist I've been shadowing this week (Dr. Kreutzberg) was on preceptor duty today, which meant that he was there to answer questions that any of the MDs had about psychology, offer treatment advice, do warm hand offs (when a doctor hands a patient off to another discipline directly rather than just scheduling the patient an appointment) and offer opinions about troublesome cases or patients. So for part of the morning I got to work with a psychiatrist (her name now escapes me). We talked about why psychiatry and psychology are different and what made her want to go into psychiatry. In Ohio, the main difference between the two disciplines is that psychiatrists can actively prescribe medication whereas psychologists mostly offer counseling and can make recommendations on medication. In the afternoon I was taken to "Grand Rounds" where a speaker was giving a presentation on guardianship of the elderly. He talked about when it was correct to recommend guardianship, went over some of the legal proceedings and logistics involving guardianship and gave a few examples from his career. Overall, while I didn't exactly understand everything, the speaker was very interesting and gave me just one more experience of the goings on at Metro.