I completed my psychiatry intern posting for a duration of two weeks. Before starting this posting, I had many misconceptions about psychiatry as a subject and about psychiatric hospitals. Like many people, I believed that psychiatric wards are frightening places, patients are violent, and treatments are harsh. I had also heard many negative things about psychiatric treatment, especially about ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy), which made me fearful. However, during these two weeks, my thinking and attitude toward psychiatry changed completely.
I observed that psychiatric patients are not as aggressive or dangerous as commonly believed. Most patients were calm, cooperative, and emotionally distressed. They were suffering from illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, and other mental health conditions. I learned that psychiatric patients need empathy, patience, and understanding. Proper history taking, mental status examination, and good communication played a very important role in diagnosis and management.
I was exposed to various treatment modalities used in psychiatry, apart from medicines. Earlier, I used to study only the drugs from books, like their names, mechanisms, and side effects. But during this posting, I experienced in real life how these drugs are actually used. I saw how antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilisers, and anxiolytics helped patients improve significantly.
One clinical case that strongly influenced me was that of a woman who was denying that her husband was her real husband. She firmly believed that he was not her actual husband and was very suspicious of him. After proper psychiatric evaluation and treatment, including medications, I observed that after one week, she started accepting that her husband was her real husband. Seeing such a clear improvement in a patient’s thinking and behaviour helped me understand how effective psychiatric treatment can be. This case made psychiatry feel very real and meaningful to me.
One of the most impactful experiences of this posting was observing ECT. Before this posting, I believed ECT was an inhumane and painful procedure. But after seeing it personally, I understood that ECT is a safe, scientific, and controlled treatment. It is given under general anaesthesia with muscle relaxants, so the patient does not feel pain. I observed ECT being administered and saw how patients with severe depression, suicidal thoughts, catatonia, and resistant psychiatric illnesses showed rapid improvement. This experience completely changed my negative perception of ECT.
Overall, this psychiatry posting helped me realise that mental illnesses are treatable medical conditions, just like physical illnesses. It reduced my stigma toward psychiatric patients and their treatment process, especially ECT.
Shubham Jhariya
MBBS Intern
MGM Medical College, Indore
