Maegan Taylor
Clinical 342
Mrs. Sharp
Clinical Journal #4
This week at San Marcos Treatment Center we were back in Spring Hill 2 with the adolescent girls for the first half of the day and then with the CNC for the second half of the day. When we got to the girls unit the nurse was not there so we sat and read through the charts of the girls. Because I had already been on that unit I read a couple of the newly admitted girls charts. After about 30-45 minutes of being in the office, the nurse showed up and asked us if we would like to go down to the schoolyard to observe the girl’s classes. She walked us down and told us which classes they were in. We went into the ELA class and the girls were reading a book and working on a worksheet to go along with it. It was weird to see that they had pedal bike seats with desk-tops. I’m guessing that these were for children that need to keep moving so that they don’t get restless. They were reading a book about a kidnaping that to me seemed very inappropriate. There were a ton of curse words and I feel like this was very inappropriate because these girls should not be saying those words and them reading this book with all of these terrible words does not help with their language. I also think that reading a book about an abduction is inappropriate as well because these girls are in a mental health facility with all different kinds of issues and I just think that reading this book could lead to further fear or trauma for some of these patients. After class we went up and were with the CNC for the rest of the day. We didn’t really have anything to do but go over charts with her. She read us the “most interesting” cases that she had and then gave us a lot of fun facts about the facility. She also took us on a little tour of the big unit we hadn’t been on and told us that it was the unit that they used the most “booty juice” on.
I enjoyed our last day at SMTC because I felt like we finally knew what we were looking for in the charts and that they stopped affecting us after reading some of the same things over and over again. I know that we can’t control things that others go through but it’s just so sad to read about what these kids have been through. The CNC also explained to us that most of these children were probably very normal until they had a traumatic event in their life and then something chemically changed in their brains. It really makes one wonder what would happen to them if they had such traumatic events at such a young age. Another thing that I wonder is what makes coping skills so strong? Because after all, this is really about how we cope with trauma. Is it our parents? Or is it just something we are born with?
I think that our day with the CNC was a good day of learning. She was very knowledgeable and had a lot of patience with all of our questions for her. I truly enjoyed our time at SMTC and wish that we didn’t have to leave to go to Methodist. I really liked that the kids were very open and willing to talk with us, even if not everything that they told us was true. The staff was very nice and welcoming and made us feel like we were wanted. I learned a lot from this round at this clinic even if we didn’t get to do much assessment with the patients.