So I did my first mini mental today. It's an assessment tool that Social Workers use to see how competent and/or depressed their patient is. I can't tell you how nervous I was. They prepare you for everything that could go wrong and by the time I actually got to my patient's room I was scared spittless but had to rustle up enough saliva to talk somehow.
I introduced myself and what I was doing there and she looks at me and says "I just can't stand you people!" The world stopped. Pull yourself together Stephanie. You know what to do. Alright... I was prepared for this. I opened my mouth to give the "well just give me a try speech" when she repeated what she had said and this time I heard "I can't understand you." I about fainted in relief.
Turns out she was quite a nice lady. Her friends who were busy watching Oprah, thought I was fresh out of ABC ready to make their girlfriend a movie star since I had to video the whole process.
I can think of 800 mistakes that I made but well... it was fun. I love my major even tho I decidedly don't want to work in that particular area. We're really getting into the blood and guts of the whole thing and it's great being able to spout off terms to fellow SW majors and nobody knows what I'm talking about. Makes me feel smart anyway. lol But you kind of have to be able to appear smart and competent so people will take you seriously. You go walking into the unit, clad in your professional garb, armed with your name badge and clip board, put in the key code for the door way and sit down in front of the client like you know what you are doing. "Hi I'm Stephanie Ford, Social Work Intern!" Except what you really feel like doing is turning tail and running out of the building which would probably result in standing their pulling on the door in desperation to no avail because you forgot the passcode. Obviously not ideal. I'm supposed to be able to walk behind the nurses station and go through records and prior assessments, but I haven't gotten up the guts to do that as yet.
But whatever. I did it... Thank goodness it's done. Yay for me!
2 comments:
Hi. Yesterday I read your blog, where you slammed Jews for only wanting to "kill animals" and "think about how bad humans are," before praising yourself and your own religion and claiming you are going to heaven -- with the implication that Jews are not. I was angry, but resolved not to post an immediate reply, but to come back this morning and reply after thinking about it. Now I see that you have removed the post. I am curious if you have changed your mind about Jews and Jewishness. If not, I could recommend some books to educate you. Clearly, your instructor at your Adventist college is not giving you the full picture on the world's religions. (P.S. I'm sure people are "laughing" about Seventh Day Adventism somewhere as well.)
I can really relate to this - it sounds just like I felt at the end of my nursing degree - not sure whether to be confident or afraid. It must be the rite of passage into the adult professions.
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