Claire Brickell, MD

My name is Claire Brickell, and I am going to do my best to give you a sense of what it is like to be a PGY-2 resident here at MGH/McLean.  I am currently about halfway through my three months on AB2, which is the psychotic disorders unit at McLean.  Examples of my current patients is a young man who may be experiencing his first psychotic break and a patient with symptoms of catatonia who is being treated with ECT.

On a typical day, I arrive at the hospital a little before rounds start at 8:30.  Each resident is paired up with an attending, but at this point in the rotation we are the ones in charge of running rounds.  This means that the nurse, the social worker, and I go to see the patient on our own and the attending joins us later to run the plan.  It's fun, because it means that I get to pick which approach to take with each patient, and how to use my 15 minutes to get information, assess symptoms, and hopefully build an alliance with the patient. 

Rounds are completely over by 11 am, leaving the rest of the day to meet one-on-one with your patients, contact collaterals (and also spend a full hour eating lunch in the sunshine outside the cafeteria).  Each week, there are also a number of excellent case conferences during which senior faculty will demonstrate interviewing techniques and offer their opinions on complex cases.  I have learned from my case conference how to highlight patient strengths and achievements.  The consulting attending also answered any lingering questions that I had about the patient and taught new ways to connect with patients more generally.

Although we spend every morning on the unit, I feel like I am hardly there is the afternoon and can spend time reading or pursuing other activities.  On Wednesdays we have didactics, and on Thursday afternoons I have my clinic.  We also leave early roughly one afternoon a week to do a shift in the CEC (clinical evaluation center), where the patient's are seen and triaged before heading to a specific unit. 

There are some pretty hard-core biologists in my class, and some of my colleagues will probably end up going on to do basic research into psychiatry on the molecular level.  I myself am most interested in training to become a really excellent therapist. I am one of the two residents on the five-year pediatric track, and I am planning to end up working with adolescents with character disorders.  Right now, I am already getting my feet wet by co-leading an interpersonal group for women with borderline personality disorders.  I get to work with George Smith, who has many years of experience with group therapy, and get supervision with him once a week.

I know that some of my colleagues were a little sad to transition out of medicine, but I am thrilled to finally be starting the real work of my residency.  It doesn't hurt that the psychiatry schedule is a lot more lenient than the Q4 call of pediatrics.  On a regular night, I get home in time to go to the gym before going out for dinner or drinks with my friends.  Especially since it is summer, I am also trying to make the most of my weekends.  Last weekend I spent Saturday at the beach up in New Hampshire and ate delicious friend seafood for dinner.  Sunday we drove to Tanglewood (about 2 hours away in Western Mass) and sat on the lawn listening to Rachmaninov's 2nd symphony.  Life is pretty good.