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chinese weirdos
10 Jul 2010 05:34 pmSo yesterday I spent a full day at community mental health for which all patients were Chinese speakers.
I probably saw some of the most difficult patients I've seen during my psych rotation, apart from that drug-seeking guy who tried to guilt-trip, blackmail and threaten his psychiatrist into prescribing him extra diazepam.
There is something about Chinese mentality that just somehow makes people infinitely more annoying especially when they're mentally ill, because they most likely have no insight, and there's an innate mistrust of doctors and some twisted belief that Australian doctors are like Chinese doctors and would pump you full of drugs just to get rich (the Chinese medical system is not separated from the pharmaceutical industry - i.e. the doctor that prescribes you the drugs sells them too - which constitutes the biggest no-no in conflicts of interests everywhere).
And there are a lot ofsnobby nose-in-the-air cynics out there who believe that depression is a fancy term psychiatrists give to people who can't get a grip on themselves and move on with their lives, rather than being a properly defined disease entity that you only hand out to people after they've ticked the core criteria.
The day ended on the high note of a patient who looked at me sitting behind the psychiatrist and on the opposite side of the room from him, and snarled when I tried to get the blood back into my legs after sitting on the hard table for the whole day because there's not enough chairs, "YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO OUR CONVERSATION YOU KNOW" and proceeded to lecture me in the way that Chinese parents are so good at doing on the hardships of migrant life and why I needed to go and "ask your classmates why you're sitting here but they can't!"
Oh man, whining "that's not fair" is so year six. Australian society might be fairer than most, but there are still a lot of deep-rooted prejudices running under the surface. It wasn't that long ago when the White Australia policy was in place.
But I love the psychiatrist for how gently she was able to deflect so much of the animosity, not just from him but from all the other nutters that I just wanted to strangle throughout the day. LOL.
I probably saw some of the most difficult patients I've seen during my psych rotation, apart from that drug-seeking guy who tried to guilt-trip, blackmail and threaten his psychiatrist into prescribing him extra diazepam.
There is something about Chinese mentality that just somehow makes people infinitely more annoying especially when they're mentally ill, because they most likely have no insight, and there's an innate mistrust of doctors and some twisted belief that Australian doctors are like Chinese doctors and would pump you full of drugs just to get rich (the Chinese medical system is not separated from the pharmaceutical industry - i.e. the doctor that prescribes you the drugs sells them too - which constitutes the biggest no-no in conflicts of interests everywhere).
And there are a lot of
The day ended on the high note of a patient who looked at me sitting behind the psychiatrist and on the opposite side of the room from him, and snarled when I tried to get the blood back into my legs after sitting on the hard table for the whole day because there's not enough chairs, "YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO OUR CONVERSATION YOU KNOW" and proceeded to lecture me in the way that Chinese parents are so good at doing on the hardships of migrant life and why I needed to go and "ask your classmates why you're sitting here but they can't!"
Oh man, whining "that's not fair" is so year six. Australian society might be fairer than most, but there are still a lot of deep-rooted prejudices running under the surface. It wasn't that long ago when the White Australia policy was in place.
But I love the psychiatrist for how gently she was able to deflect so much of the animosity, not just from him but from all the other nutters that I just wanted to strangle throughout the day. LOL.
