Caitlin Rea, AB 2015

The last four months…

I’ve been working in an old age psych ward. During the last month, there’s been a COVID outbreak there, and I was the only junior doctor there. I faced coronavirus firsthand, dealing with elderly eighty-year-old patients with dementia, with depression, with bipolar while also having this outbreak on the ward, trying to keep them on this ward isolated and make these advanced care plans with families who could not even come up to the ward. A lot of our staff got coronavirus, so some days I was the only one there who had previously worked on the ward before. There can be tough days on the ward and decisions being made. One patient used to play the pipe, but he’s now suffering from severe vascular dementia. So we just listen to music sometimes and play pretend pipes to each other, just between us. It’s the little things like that, being a little bit silly and having fun, especially in psychiatry, is what we all need sometimes.

I learned so much…

about working with nurses and physios, occupational therapists and consultants, and families. As a junior doctor, I also learned a lot about reaching out to people. In medicine, you should never feel alone because you really always have support. I definitely learned a lot, too, about how to destress. It’s a skill key for your first couple years at med school or at Harvard. I run to and from work and find activities that get my brain away from medicine so that I can sleep healthily and keep myself going.

Caitlin Rea

AB 2015 | Neurobiology

Second-Year Foundation Training in Edinburgh, Scotland

Compiled and interviewed by Felicia Ho