Human Connection

Common Grounds

I think the patient was 15-ish and she was dealing with anorexia nervosa. She was the stereotypical anorexic patient. Straight As in school, control over everything, and then she also had OCD.

It was heartbreaking because you could tell that she wanted so desperately to get better but it was just very hard for her. She couldn't even sit on a chair because she was concerned about bacteria and stuff, and the OCD kind of went into her eating and she could only chew stuff a certain amount of times.  

I would see her every day on child psych my very short time. The child psych rotation is like three four days but I think we had a pretty close bond. We would talk about coffee shops, and the vampire diaries, and just normal mundane teenager things. I guess, kind of to normalize her experience. She was just so smart and so emotionally intelligent, way more emotionally intelligent than I would say most fifteen-year-olds. She could name her feelings, and she clearly knew that she had an issue. I think when you're dealing with a mental illness, it kind of forces you to grow up so in some way she'd been forced to grow up. That was really sad to see. She should be a 15-year-old kid worried about school and hanging out with her friends, not worried about whether or not she can sit on a chair. 

How has this experience impacted you?  

Before clerkship, I wasn't interested in anything related to children really. I wanted pathology earlier in med school. I think—I don't know where I’m going with this, but kind of seeing these kids deal with things that they shouldn't have to makes me consider child psych. 

(Spoiler: She matched to psychiatry.)