Psychiatry Site Evaluation Reflection

During my site evaluation with Dr. Saint Martin, I presented three HPIs on the following topics- Adjustment disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and Bipolar 1 with acute mania. Upon presenting my patient with schizoaffective disorder, Dr. Saint Martin pointed out the low prevalence of this disorder in the general population and the lack of probability that the patient would actually be correctly diagnosed with it. I then researched for my journal article the issue with the disorder according to DSM-5 diagnostic criteria and the suggestions that could be made. Overall, I now believe that a better way to categorize these patients would be to attach their symptoms to a specifier of a specific psychiatric diagnosis such as depression with acute psychosis, instead of schizoaffective disorder. I found that research to be very interesting and made me understand the rejection of this diagnosis in the medical world a little bit better. I also spoke and researched different drugs that I encountered on my rotation such as benzodiazepines, SSRIs, and TCAs for example. I spoke about their unique MOA and side effects to look out for. I enjoyed researching the efficacy of each drug as well. I found the site evaluations to be educational yet challenging and always found myself learning about new things that I hadn’t thought about or heard about on my rotation. I found a lot of value in those discussions with Dr. Saint Martin and it furthered my learning.

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