My First Two Weeks on a Psychiatric Floor

Today marks my first day off orientation and the end of my first two weeks as a mental health worker. Looking back, I realize how little I truly understood about psychiatry before stepping onto these floors. Now, I am certain that this is the most important work I can do in my lifetime.

My path here was not direct. It began last summer, when the life I had carefully built came apart. In the middle of that collapse, something strange happened. I felt a profound sense of calm, a feeling so unexpected it sent me down a rabbit hole of discovery. I read everything I could find about psychology and the brain, trying to understand my own response. That search led me to a core truth of psychiatry: there are still so few objective answers for what happens inside our minds. This realization became the foundation of my personal mission to help find answers that are both scientific and human.

That curiosity pushed me toward the clinic. I enrolled in a medical assistant program, where a simple exercise of taking blood pressure sparked an idea. We all struggled to distinguish the sounds through our stethoscopes and were getting different readings. It made me wonder about the tools we rely on. I researched building a better, digital stethoscope and discovered Eko Health, a company born from the same realization that our most basic tools can be improved. This affirmed my belief that my technical skills could have a place in medicine.

From there, the path became clearer. I earned a certification as a Direct Support Professional (DSP) and began working in a residential facility for adults with developmental disabilities and mental illness. It was there, while giving medications, documenting behaviors, and seeing the direct impact of care, that I knew I wanted to be a clinician. I applied to two local psychiatric hospitals and landed here, where I am today.

As a mental health worker, I am one of the people closest to the patients. We are there for the 15-minute observation rounds, for the 1:1s, and for assisting with therapeutic activities. I have also been involved in the admissions and discharge process. During admissions, I am one of the first people to interact with a patient at their most vulnerable. I perform skin checks for contraband, take their vitals, weigh and measure them, and inventory their personal belongings while the nurse assesses their condition. This process is a stark reminder of how much critical data, both clinical and personal, is gathered from the very first moment.

In my first two weeks, I have been floated across all units, from the ICU to the specialized DDMI unit. That first day on the floor was a crystallizing moment. I saw people with such a wide range of behaviors and illnesses, and I knew I wanted to do more than just observe and pass messages to the nurses. I wanted to build tools that could help solve their problems.

One memory from this week stands out. A patient was in crisis, and when staff could not de-escalate the situation, they called a code grey. I stood outside the seclusion room as they redirected the patient, and I started to cry. I did not have a relationship with this patient; it was my first time seeing this patient up close. I had seen redirections before without tearing up. I still do not fully understand my reaction, but I think it speaks to the profound weight of this work, a weight I am now privileged to share.

My experience here has already reinforced what I have learned in my research. I see the frustration in patients who wait days to see a psychiatrist for only a few minutes. I see the nurses, who patients think are just giving pyschiatric shots and medications, buried under administrative work and care coordination. It makes the need for better systems and for tools that can bridge these gaps feel more urgent than ever.

Over the next six months, my goal is to absorb as much as I can. I want to become a licensed psychiatric technician to take on more direct clinical responsibility, particularly in administering medication, which will deepen my understanding of psychiatric medications and patient care as I continue on my path toward medical school. I will continue to observe, to document, and to ask questions. Every observation, from a patient's frustration with the system to my own unexpected tears, is data. It is the human data that will guide me as I learn to build the tools that can one day support this vital, difficult, and deeply meaningful work.