Your Patient Died. Who Cares?

    I thought I'd share what I saw on my Twitter feed as soon as I got up this morning. I immediately felt a blog post coming on, particularly after reading the Twitter comments as they rolled in. I felt a bit sick, knowing what some of my colleagues in Ohio must be going through right now. This post is for you. When it comes to patient suicide, correctional psychiatry is probably one of the higher risk subspecialties within psychiatry. The average prisoner has three risk factors for suicide before he even steps into the facility: he's male, young, and has an active substance abuse problem. There's even a recent study to suggest that being charged with a crime increases one's risk of suicide, even if that person is never incarcerated. Considering this, if you practice correctional health care for a few years it's pretty likely that at some point you will experience a patient suicide, either as a health care first responder, as an administrator or as a mental health clinician. I feel like I need to write this blog post to warn you about something: Don't expect your friends, family and colleagues to understand why you're upset that somebody died. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but that's just the reality of correctional health care. The general public---and even some physicians---are going to instinctively give you a "who cares? He's just a criminal" response even if they don't know the person or what he was locked up for. Let's consider the responses...
Source: Shrink Rap - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs