While participating in my inpatient psych rotation at Harding, I found that all attendings and residents always kept the highest standard of professionalism. When patients were undergoing psychosis, anxiety, and a multitude of different moods and feelings, it can be difficult to understand exactly what the patients are expressing during their encounters. Some patients would mumble, other would stare for several minutes and still others would be pacing and speaking in a flight of ideas. However, the faculty members were always calm and patient while giving respect to the patients who sometimes spoke nonsense during the interviews for rounds. In one particular experience, one of our patients constantly had loose associations and her thought content was very disorganized. However, the attending was always appreciative of the patient for participating in the interview and actively listened to the patient’s incoherent explanations.
This experience taught me that professionalism requires patience and understanding while also being able to quickly analyze and determine the next plan of care for a patient even when a patient is incomprehensible. Though it was difficult to grasp what the patient may be saying, the doctors never appeared flustered or overwhelmed. On the contrary, my attending tried to clarify the information as much as possible and maintained a trusting patient-doctor relationship. This experience impacted my professional development as it taught me that being a professional does not only mean finding the answer to a problem to help care for a patient. Being a professional also means listening to a patient’s needs, respecting the patient and trying your best to treat the whole patient: physically, emotionally, and intellectually.
I felt my reflection in the psychiatry ward demonstrated professionalism. The physician took his role as patient care provider seriously and consistently maintained compassion, respect and altruism in the truest sense.
I plan to develop in the competency of professionalism by emulating this psychiatry physician’s actions when I interact with all of my patients.