Earlier this year, I was in Bangalore on a brief vacation, eager to see India’s recent economic progress first hand. I was not disappointed—new flyovers, crowded shopping malls, gleaming glass buildings—the city was almost unrecognizable. One pleasant evening, I was sipping a particularly tart Mojito at one of Bangalore’s many new nightspots. The place was packed—confident and hip young things milled...
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Dr. Venkatesh, Professor of Psychiatry and Head of the Department, had a thick mustache and a permanently disgruntled attitude. “What is schizophrenia, I say?” he asked by way of greeting, as we stood in his small office, sweating in the Bangalore summer. “Sir,” I ventured, “it’s a psychotic disorder in which there are delusions, hallucina-tions, and decreased functioning.” I’d read a few pages...
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Conversation 1 The resident handed me the phone. “The psych charge nurse thinks the patient should stay in the ICU,” he said. I glanced at my watch. My outpatient clinic was in 15 minutes. We had had a hard time convincing the family and the patient about the need for psychiatric admission, and now this. I took a deep breath. “Linda, how are you?” I said, in that cloyingly pleasant tone my voice...
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I feel terrible,” she said. “I can’t sleep, I cry all the time, and I don’t want to do anything around the house.” Her symptoms seemed mind-numbingly mundane. I’d heard a dozen similar stories in the past week alone, probably thousands over the years, and I had to remind myself that for her, this was a singular experience. She’d never felt anything like it. I dictated my note in a practiced...
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