The Benefits of Day Care

I had to write a reflection about one thing I have learned at Day Care. I have learned the benefits of Day Care. Even though Day Care doesn't provide an environmental comfortable atmosphere, there is a lot that the patients can benefit from.

In day care, every day is organized different but very structured. There is a schedule of all activities hanging in the hall so the day care members know exactly what to expect. I have realized how important it is to offer the day care members a well-organized schedule that they have to follow. Some not all of the patients might want to return back to work and they should know and be taught what it means to follow a routine. They learn what it means to be at a place on time, they learn to start and complete tasks and they learn how to socially interact with other people. Some patients might use those new acquired skills to prepare for a job and others might simply use those skills to prepare for a life outside of day care in the real world.

Besides teaching patients new skills, the day care also allows the patients to engage in meaningful tasks. After the day is over, patients can reflect back on it and can feel good about what they have accomplished. For example, people who are diagnosed with a mental illness might not find anything to do at home. At the end of the day, they might feel sad because they don’t have done anything for the entire day and there is nothing to reflect on. But through day care and their activities their day is given meaning. In addition, day care’ activities might give the patients a break from their illness. If they don’t do anything, they might be too preoccupied with their symptoms and so they might experience them as even worse. Day care activities pull patients away from their symptoms and give them an alternative to focus on. Another benefit of day care is the fact that it builds confidents in a lot of patients. They are given a task, they complete it, then it is checked and they are being praised for their good work. Given the patients a reason to be complimented on helps them to be proud of themselves which subsequently increases their self-confidence.

Admitting: I am a little Exhausted

I wish I could say more but I am a little exhausted. I have a Monday through Friday week, from early morning until 4.30pm. At the same time I am trying to explore Delhi as much as I can. On top of all that, we also have assignments that we have to submit. Not a big deal, but still some work. I feel a little low on energy right now.

Another reason for my exhaustion is a new patient. I have shifted to the IPD (Inpatient Department) a few days ago and we are assigned a bipolar patient and she is in a manic stage right now. Trust me, this is hard for us and really exhausting; we are not sure how to deal with it.

Anyway, today we had a little break because we went for our supervisory session to the University. Since I have become an honorary member of that school, I obviously can't miss those sessions. And from there we went out to explore Connaught Place. To get there, we took a ricksha, which is where the picture was taken. 

Walking is just not the same...

I really love walking. I prefer walking to everything else. It is relaxing and calming me down after work or school. And before leaving to work or school, it is waking me up. I think it is pretty stressful to take public transportation or to taking the car. I don't like waiting for the bus, wondering if it ever show up and then being smashed into a corner of a crowded bus. I also don't like driving in traffic and then looking for parking spots for hours while worrying to be late.

I know that when I leave the house at a certain time, I will need exactly 45 minutes to get to the hospital no matter what. The reason for walking is to see the people of Delhi on the streets, I want to see how they work, how they interact and how they live. Getting from place to the other by ricksha, car or bus makes me miss out on so many things.

Another reason for walking is to become more comfortable with my surrounding. When I am not in a tourist area, people stare tremendously. Especially, in lower economic background neighborhoods, people stare me down. And I have to admit that I get a little scared. But I don't want to be scared, I want to experience Indian culture and not only be comfortable in tourist areas. I also want to be able to feel fine by myself among Indians. By walking, I thought I would have all that. I would get a nice walk to work and get to know the Indian culture as well as become more comfortable being around that culture by myself.

But instead of all the positive attributes that I expected, I have had mostly negative experiences. I know it is really hot and I think I can take the heat pretty well but I don't think I can deal with all the smog and dust. I think my lungs have already turned black. I am coughing constantly and every time I blow my nose there is literally black stuff... I don't think I should have that. The other thing is that I being stared at. I expected that but whenever I reach the less "good" neighborhoods, there are a lot of homeless people on the streets walking and sometimes they walk really close to me and I have change sidewalks. There is really enough space so there is no need to walk so close behind me but people do anyway. I wish I would not feel this way but I do. There was another instance where one little boy came running to me, laughing really hard, touched my arm and run back to his friends. I know that it is not something that they see every day (a white girl) but I have to admit I am scared because I never know how people will react to me. The last thing that makes me not enjoy my walk are the tons of cars. Everybody, literally EVERYBODY, is honking. And they also drive dangerously close to you and I always think they will run me over. It is in particular difficult to cross streets and I have to do that constantly.

Walking today in the morning, I really started questioning if I really want to continue walking. Is it worth it? At this point, I am rather stressed walking instead of enjoying it...  

The Lack of Hindi becomes Increasingly a Problem...

In the hospital, everybody speaks English. And by everybody I don't really mean everybody but rather the doctors and most of the patients. For example, the attendants and the staff around the hospital don't speak English. However, even though most of the doctors speak English, they prefer speaking Hindi. This is the same for all the students and interns. They do speak English when they have to but obviously they prefer speaking their language, Hindi.

We have case presentations every Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Every doctor or senior intern is either presenting a patient and their symptoms, diagnosis etc or simply a topic assigned to them. They also usually have pretty good discussions after the presentations. But even though the presentations are in English, a lot of the doctors are asking questions in Hindi. And since I don't understand Hindi, I am totally kicked out of the discussion. I understand that it's the language that they feel more comfortable with and that there are things that cannot be said in English as well as they can in Hindi but what I would suggest is to keep the amount of Hindi to a reasonable amount. For example, today the whole entire discussion was in Hindi, nobody ever said anything in English and I was lost.

Today, I also had my first day at the IPD, which is the In Patient Ward. We were assigned patients and obviously my patient didn't speak English at all. I think that is unnecessary because there are a lot of patients who in fact speak English why not assign me those. We are divided into groups of two or three so I know that the other interns can translate but there is such so much that gets lost. And I would really like to get the whole gist of the patient and not only some translation. 

Later in the day we also had two lectures by two resident doctors and I have to admit that I barely understand them. In particular one of them had a pretty heavy accent and he also didn't put a lot of emphasis into what he said. As a whole, it was really hard to understand. So I think I got only about 25% out of the lectures. I tried to copy the notes from the other interns but it was too stressful to keep up with the paste.

I know that this sounds as if I am whining but I just have to express my frustration. At the end, it is not as bad. I still like being there and simply experiencing even though I don't understand everything.

I got too Attached!

The French guy is gone. He was discharged at noon and I did not get to say goodbye. I really liked him. I really liked talking to him. I felt like we were having a good conversation and I could reach him somehow but all of this is over. I probably should distance myself more from instances like this because if this is how it feels every time after a patient is gone then I will have a hard time. I think because I feel so out of place with the other patients, the French guy gave me hope again. I connected with him, he talked and I listened. With the other patients it is much more difficult. Either the language barrier is in the way or other cultural factors; with the French guy I didn't have that. Maybe, I have to get more open with the situation that I am in. I have to learn to become comfortable talking to the other patients as well and just make the best out of it. Use the disadvantage to your advantage.

After the internship I went to the Humayun's Tomb, one of Delhi's most famous monuments. Even there, there are tons of dogs roaming around but some people are not as scared of those dogs as you can see on the picture. 

Back to the Internship after only one Day off

I am sick so I felt awful today. My nose kept running the whole day, my head was about to explode and my ears were plugged. However, I was brave and stuck at the hospital until the end and beyond. We really wanted to speak again to the French guy so we waited until he woke up from his nap, which was after 4.30pm (which is when we usually get off). While waiting for the French guy, we made some goodbye cards for the previous interns. You can see us doing that in the picture. The patients will sign those cards and sing a song for the interns when they will give her the card. So the other interns were practicing the songs with the patients and we made the cards.

Then, I finally went to see the French guy. He was awaiting us. We promised him to bring him some paper, brushes and paint so he could start painting again. I also brought him a German magazine. He says that he has trouble reading English but German is fine. We got to his room we talked a little about his paintings. He also painted a picture for one of the interns and it was awesome. We obviously tried to find out what all the things meant that he painted but it sounds easier than it was. Because he says that he paints intuitively, he doesn't think about what he paints.

There were a couple of things that I found out about the paintings of patients suffering from schizophrenia. Those paintings can help patients to express things that have otherwise no words. Patients can communicate their experiences. Painting can also help patients to merge the things that are happening inside of them with the outside reality and by that coming closer to reality. Schizophrenic patients' experiences, thoughts and emotions can be taking out of their surreal world that exist inside of them and make them part of reality by making it a painting.           

There were a lot of mentally ill artists who became very famous for their work. A few of the most famous are Vincent Van Gogh, Eduard Munch and Gustav Klimt so why not this French Guy.

First Sleep Over

I haven’t left my house yet so there is not much to report on. I am excited for my first sleep over of my temporary home, New Delhi. I will be going to the Saket Market first with Mukta and then we will go over to her house. At night she said she would like to go swimming. I love swimming so I am happy. I think it’s nice because we can discuss together things about Samuel (the French patient) and about our conversation we had with him. This is what the doctor asked us to do; reflect on what we have talked about.

I also realized that my throat hurts really bad and I think this is because of the horrible air here in Delhi. I am totally sick of breathing in all that dust. It’s amazingly dusty here. Since I am walking to my internship every morning for like 45 minutes I am extremely exposed to the cars, their emissions and the dust. I hate it and my throat doesn't like it either.