Dangermouse

I spent the day with a psychiatrist yesterday.  It was great.  I enjoy psychiatry a lot.  I don't really enjoy psych consults with GPs very much since they typically run like this: "Still feeling okay?", "Not so great", "Okay, try taking the tablets 3 times per day instead of twice and come back in a month", "Okay, see you then".  Not very inspiring stuff.

Psychiatrists get to spend longer with their patients because, presumably, the patients have a more serious need of them.  Its the conversations in these long consults that I like, when the patient isn't just trying to avoid getting pushed out the door.

But the most exciting bit about yesterday was that there was a mouse loose in the consulting room.  Halfway through one of the appointments, I noticed that the mental health nurse was twitching her foot in a funny way and staring at the floor.  I thought I might have to ask her switch seats with the patient, but it turns out she had spotted the mouse right by the patient's chair and was trying to persuade it to go back behind the desk without alerting anyone by doing this little minimalistic haka.  It didn't work.  The mouse came charging out right through us all, heading for the door.

The patient screamed.  We all jumped.  The mouse realized it was trapped because the door was shut.  I leaped up, announcing that I could catch it because I was from the country.  (I get that from my mother - the belief that any eccentric behaviour will be tolerated if you loudly announce that you're from the country.)  Of course, I failed to catch the mouse but succeeded in making myself look like an idiot.  The mouse ran back bahind the desk and vanished.  We all had a laugh and carried on.

The mouse made two other appearances in the afternoon.  The first time it bolted for the open door, running over the psychiatrist's shoe to get there, and then disappeared down the hall towards the lunch room.  About an hour later, once it had had some lunch I suppose, it sprinted back into our room and ran between my feet, under my chair and back behind the desk.  The patient we had then really jumped but the psychiatrist and I were quite relaxed about it by that stage, and laughed it off with an insouciant wave of our hands, as if it happens all the time. 

I noticed that each time after the mouse appeared, the patient was more relaxed and open with the psychiatrist.  There were more fearful glances over their shoulder towards where the mouse was seen last, of course, but it didn't seem to inhibit the consult.  Perhaps they had the right idea in the olden days by sending people out to asylums in the country where they could reconnect with nature.  Yes, most if not all of the therapies were a bit inappropriate and ineffective, not to mention downright dangerous or harmful.  But I think the prescription of a mouse to chase around the house might be just the thing to really pep people up and give them the change they've been looking for.  Who'd like to be a co-author?