Ebook: In a House of Dreams and Glass: Becoming a Psychiatrist

A psychiatric resident's firsthand account reveals his struggles with the homeless, suicidal, and paranoid, and his frustrations with hospital politics and the limitations of an inexact science. Fresh from medical school, Robert Klitzman began his residency in psychiatry with excitement and a sense of mission. But he was not prepared for what he found inside the city psychiatric center where he was to spend three grueling years. In truth, as Dr. Klitzman's absorbing account of his apprenticeship reveals, he never ceased to be surprised?by his patients, by the senior psychiatrists' conflicting advice on how to help them, and by the unpredictable results of the therapies, both psychoanalytic and biologic, that he and his fellow residents practiced. Nights in the emergency room, professional controversy, the minefield of hospital politics, the stress of his own therapy--everything is here, in a passionate and illuminating analysis of a doctor's struggle against tremendous odds to banish his patients' demons.;Intro; Praise; Title Page; Copyright Page; Acknowledgments; Dedication; Contents; Preface; Part I; Chapter 1: Nightwatch; Chapter 2: Buds; Chapter 3: The Survival Ward; Chapter 4: Reversing the Current; Chapter 5: No-No's; Chapter 6: The Treatment of Choice; Chapter 7: Roosters or Hens; Chapter 8: What is T?; Chapter 9: Yellow Caps; Chapter 10: Guests on Checks; Part II; Chapter 11: House Wine; Chapter 12: Home; Chapter 13: Comrades; Chapter 14: To Walk in the Valley; Chapter 15: The Man in My Head; Chapter 16: The Great Door Debate; Chapter 17: Strings; Chapter 18: Vows