Depression

This week has been full of this topic, starting with my trip to the ED on Sunday night. A friend called Sunday afternoon asking questions about a visit to the emergency room about crisis evaluations and how she should know when to take her 'sister.' I answered all questions dutifully and left it at that. Knowing her family, including said sister, it was a plausible story. Three hours later she called me in tears asking to be taken in to the ED. As I stated in an earlier post, it was a long night and by law I had to take her in. It's not the same scenario if you call the cops, and I knew calling in the cops wouldn't help her. So, we loaded up the car and took her to whichever hospital she chose.

It ended up being mine.

Because my hospital is the only level 1 Trauma center around, we got the joys of sitting out on a gurney in the hallway until they could find time for a measly crisis evaluation. GSW's to the face, stabbings, heart attacks, MVA's and MCI's rolled past us from the helicopter pad. I tried to be supportive to this person who I sat with, but we weren't that close and I wanted to see these traumas.

Because of what happened Sunday night I think I caught something from a patient in the ED, because I got sick. However, when I am down I have time to think about things. One thing I got to thinking about was depression.

During report today I caught myself rolling my eyes and sighing, making a comment similar to 'everyone has depression and anxiety'. It was wrong of me to say. I shouldnt've said it, i shouldnt've thought it. But when we work in medicine we seem to overlook that diagnosis. We seem to look for anything better when in reality, depression is a serious illness.

Everyone has had a down point in their life. A bad day, week, or month. A time where that damn raincloud follows them everywhere. The thing about depression is that alot of the time people don't realize they have it, and once they find out they do, they are over medicated and treated. Sometimes the treatment s appropriate other times its inappropriate. Either way, depressed people get help. That's a step.

I have sat in many 1:1's. Many suicide precautions and many depressed people. We roll our eyes at the 21 year olds who claim they don't want to live anymore, we sigh at the thirty-one year olds who are loosing their minds in a mid-life crisis. But what we don't realize is that their pain is real.

This post is not just an information post. I want to send out a challenge to everyone to quit overlooking depression. Shame on me for not watching the girl with the crisis evaluation. Shame on me for what I said. Shame on the doctors for not taking time to really look into someones depression and their medications. Shame on us, for not knowing enough about this totally painful and out of control disorder. Let's do better y'all.