The neuroscience module included psychiatry, and we had amazing lectures from top level experts on mental illness, including those who suffered from mental illness themselves. Dr. Kay Jamison gave us a lecture on bipolar disorder, which she has suffered from since her early adulthood. She showed us first hand how successful those with bipolar disorder can become. She experienced many episodes of mania and depression throughout her pursuit of a career in academia. She also pointed out that some of the most creative people of our time are thought to have suffered from manic depression.
Dr. Fred Frese introduced himself by explaining that people often say schizophrenics have a difficult time staying on topic, "we stay on our topic just fine, just not your topic!" He proceeded to give us a first hand account of how a person transforms from "normal" to psychosis. He was working as a Marine Captain guarding thermonuclear weapons and was wondering how we were being beaten by "a bunch of little guys in black pajamas." After seeing the movie Manchurian Candidate, he realized that the Japanese were hypnotizing our leaders. He called up the base psychiatrist to consult on hypnosis, and to his surprise the psychiatrist agreed to see him right away! He described how things become "overly connected" in a schizophrenic's mind. In Japanese culture the number 3 is lucky (think of all the Japanese companies containing Mit or San). 3 branches of government. 3 colors on the American flag. 3 colors on a stop light. Tritium. The holy Trinity. This theory eventually led him into a church where he found himself transforming into an atom, an instrument of the Lord to bring Armageddon.
Then he found himself in a mental hospital. He knew he was dead, but there were no flames, so it couldn't be Hell, and it was too dirty to be Heaven, so he must be in purgatory. He knew he needed to clean that place up to get to Heaven. He started cleaning, but they took his cleaning supplies away, so he started licking. He got to the bathroom sinks, and then the toilets before something went off in his brain saying maybe this wasn't right. Dr. Frese talked a lot about delusions and about how they are absolutely true to the person in the delusion. He compared psychosis to being drunk. You don't realize it at the time, but you look back the next day and say, "wow, I was out of it." Dr. Frese spent a number of years wandering the streets, in and out of mental hospitals. At one point, he ended up in a VA hospital, where after running a battery of tests they informed him that he was very intelligent and that if it weren't for his mental illness he could have become a professor. He took that as a challenge. "I like a challenge, I married a Roman Catholic nun!" 12 years after being institutionalized, he became the head of that very same hospital.
Dr. Frese did an amazing job sharing a personal story, injecting humor and talking about changes that need to take place in the treatment of mental illness. There are currently more mentally ill people in jail than in hospitals, and he is working to change that by educating law enforcement. The Freudian "it's your mothers' fault" has already changed, and more treatment options are being researched. He also talked about de-stigmatizing mental illness, which remains a challenge.
Here's some more fun stuff from the past module!
 |
| USU Fighting Docs soccer team |
 |
| Tour of the White House Medical Unit in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building |
 |
| Tour of the White House East Wing |
 |
| Advanced IV lab - lidocaine + smaller veins than last time! |
No comments :
Post a Comment