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Psychiatrist Shares Her First Day in Prison
“Ma’am, we can’t let you in!” These words rang like a loud tocsin as I was told that I had worn a forbidden color, a chambray blue denim ensemble. On my first day at work at the correctional facility, I quickly learned that orange and neon green were also among the many prohibited colors of clothing. Contraband included personal cell phones, earbuds, smart watches, an extra pair of shoes and anything made of glass and personal decorations for my cubicle. While I always knew that practicing psychiatry was never going to be boring, this took the novelty to an unexpected level.
“Ma’am, we can’t let you in!” These words rang like a loud tocsin as I was told that I had worn a forbidden color, a chambray blue denim ensemble. On my first day at work at the correctional facility, I quickly learned that orange and neon green were also among the many prohibited colors of clothing. Contraband included personal cell phones, earbuds, smart watches, an extra pair of shoes and anything made of glass and personal decorations for my cubicle. While I always knew that practicing psychiatry was never going to be boring, this took the novelty to an unexpected level.
In retrospect, it is notable that I was fascinated by the Australian television crime series Halifax f.p. as a teenager, where the protagonist was a female forensic psychiatrist. Though it was never my intention to become a correctional psychiatrist, work visa needs and geographical preference had brought me to this place. I was ready to start my practice as a trained geriatric psychiatrist…in an all-male prison.
To acquaint myself with the culture, I binge-watched Wentworth and Orange is the New Black on Netflix while awaiting my new assignment to begin. However, except for knowing that SHU meant Solitary Housing Unit, I was a complete novice when it came to correctional procedures.
Now feeling slightly more prepared, my first day began. As soon as I tentatively entered the premises, I heard the mandatory alarm, which I began to call my ‘posture-correction-device’ as it seemed to beep whenever I slouched or leaned back in my chair. Also mandatory were the multiple identity card and personal bag checks which would later serve to make my experiences with TSA more pleasant.
When I spotted the watch-towers above, I realized that my blue denim outfit made me difficult to differentiate from an inmate. Since it was technically shift change, there were groups of various types of staff members walking out to freedom after having spent the previous eight hours at work overnight. I smiled inwardly as I caught the sound of my mother-tongue while watching two staff members, who were dressed in scrubs try to finalize a shift swap. We ended up on the same unit a couple of years later and would often have lunch together.
Since I had been assigned to the acute inpatient unit, I showed up for the morning huddle and noticed the bulky, armless blue chairs in the room. They were difficult to lift, clearly resistant to punctures, tear and ligature tying. All of a sudden, the unit was swarmed by a group of custody officers who were responding to an alarm generated by a suicide-watch sitter as the patient had “boarded up” using his mattress. He was refusing to be discharged back to his assigned unit as he had reported safety concerns, fearing for his life. That’s when I learned that prison-gang politics were a reality and not just a part of Lockdown on National Geographic.
That day, after the huddle, I got my census list and went to the custody station so that the patients could be brought to the office. It was clear that no movement happened in the prison without the approval of custody as “safety first” was the motto. A few minutes later, a young, well-built man with multiple tattoos walked into my office. The accompanying custody officers made sure I had an alarm on me and gave me a thumbs up.
My first patient sat down across from me on the bland and unwieldy chair, smiled and said cheerfully, “Ah! You must be the new Psych! We’ve been expecting you!”
Rishab Gupta is a third year resident in psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. He is also enrolled in a PhD in Neural and Behavioral Sciences at Downstate. He graduated from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi in 2008. Being extremely interested in understanding human behavior since his medical school days, he joined Psychiatry residency at AIIMS in 2009. After finishing his training, he continued to work in the Department of Psychiatry at AIIMS as a trained psychiatrist. He is very passionate about academics and loves teaching and pursuing clinical research. He has presented his work at multiple national and international platforms and published numerous papers in different domains of psychiatry. Because of his unquenched thirst for learning he joined SUNY Downstate Medical Center as a Psychiatry resident in 2016. After graduating, he plans to pursue fellowship in Neuropsychiatry because of his active interest in disorders lying at the interface of Neurology and Psychiatry. He aims to be an academician and pursue research into the neurobiology of frontotemporal dementia, and psychotic disorder. When he is not in the clinic or learning psychiatry, he enjoys reading trivia, making jokes, doing social networking, trekking, listening to Punjabi music, and bingeing on various TV shows and movies.
Nwayieze Ndukwe
Dr.Nwayieze C. Ndukwe, MD, MPH, is a psychiatrist based in New York and New Jersey who enjoys exploring the interesection of mental health and popular culture. Dr.Ndukwe serves a associate professor at Mount Sinai Hospital systems in New York City and Mountainside Hospital in Montclair. Dr.Ndukwe was trained at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, and is board certified in Psychiatry by the ABPN. Dr.Ndukwe also holds a Master's in Degree in Public Health from Rutgers University.
Candace Good
Dr. Good specializes in college mental health as a staff psychiatrist at Penn State Counseling and Psychological Services. She is also the founder of Sig: Wellness, LLC, an integrative psychiatry practice in State College, PA. Her office includes a mind-body studio to encourage yoga, meditation, and other healing arts for stress management. The space serves as an incubator for other female wellness practitioners to grow their presence in the community. Dr. Good welcomes freelance writing and editing projects relevant to her specialty and blogs at https://howtoshrinkashrink.com.
Dr. Good is board-certified in both general and child & adolescent psychiatry. She maintains a clinical faculty appointment with the Penn State College of Medicine, where she also completed her medical degree and residency training. Over the past 15 years, her clinical work has included care of families in both rural and underserved communities as well as academic settings. Administrative roles have included medical director at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic Center for Children and Families, vice president of Sunpointe Health, and both unit director of behavioral health services and department chair of psychiatry at the Mount Nittany Medical Center. In 2017, she was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) and was recognized as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP).
Dr. Good enjoys knitting and spending time with her family, especially her daughter and rescue hounds, Abbott and Flip.
Dr. Chepke attended NYU School of Medicine and completed psychiatry residency at Duke University, where he also completed undergraduate studies. He is Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He currently has a private practice in Huntersville, NC, serves as medical director for a level 3 residential adolescent treatment facility, and is an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Medical School at the Charlotte Campus.
Dr. Chepke has particular interests in treatment-resistant/severe persistent mental illness, as well as patients with both psychiatric and neurological disorders. He is a member of the CURESZ Foundation Clozapine Experts Panel and Tardive Dyskinesia Experts Panel, as well as a member of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. He also emphasizes engaging his patients in psychotherapy and strongly encouraging integrative approaches including physical health and wellness through exercise and dietary modification and supplementation. Dr. Chepke’s research interests are in neuropsychiatry and drug metabolism/interactions and is currently a principal investigator for several clinical trials.
Nishi Bhopal, MD is Board Certified in Psychiatry, Sleep Medicine, and Integrative Holistic Medicine. She grew up in Vancouver and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia. Her interest in medicine and love of travel took her halfway across the globe where she graduated with a degree in medicine from the National University of Ireland, University College Cork School of Medicine. She went on to complete her Psychiatric residency training at Henry Ford Hospital/Wayne State University and then a fellowship in Sleep Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. She now calls the Bay Area home and practices outpatient psychiatry in San Francisco. Dr. Bhopal is passionate about helping her patients find health and wellbeing through a combination of modern medical science and the wisdom of traditional eastern practices.
Dr. Nissa Perez completed her undergraduate work in psychobiology at UCLA and then obtained her medical degree from University of Southern California. She completed residency at UCLA San Fernando Valley Psychiatry Training Program and is a Board Certified Psychiatrist. She worked for one year as an attending in her residency program and has been in private practice for the last four and a half years, now in San Jose, CA. She incorporates psychopharmacology and psychotherapy into her practice and draws from multiple therapeutic modalities, primarily psychodynamic and mindfulness, but also incorporates cognitive behavioral therapy.
Dr. Perez is also an avid meditator and yogi. She meditates daily, regularly practices yoga and has attended multiple silent meditation retreats. She blogs at AMindfulMD.com.
Dr. Leslie Walker obtained her MD and MS (Neuroscience) degrees from the University of Michigan. She finished residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2000 and has been in solo practice since then, first in Baltimore and then in Cleveland. She has particular interests in treating women as well as physicians, and for five years served part-time as the psychiatrist for the Women's Trauma Treatment Program at the Cleveland VA Hospital. She enjoys teaching residents and medical students at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and she speaks nationally to physicians on psychiatric topics, work/family balance, resilience, and self-care. She is married to an academic neurologist and has one child in college and one in graduate school, making her officially an empty nester! Next goals: starting a blog and publishing a book.
Erik Messamore, MD, PhD is an expert in the fields of psychopharmacology, complex mood disorders, psychosis and schizophrenia.
He earned a PhD in neuropharmacology from Southern Illinois University and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He received his Medical Degree from the University of Illinois and completed a residency in Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
His current research is focused on characterizing the blood flow response to niacin among people with schizophrenia. This research may ultimately improve our ability to detect schizophrenia at its very early stages and to categorize psychiatric illness along physiological lines.
He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) in Rootstown, Ohio. He is also the Medical Director of NEOMED’s Best Practices in Schizophrenia Treatment (BeST) Center.
He is a seasoned clinician and accomplished scientist, with a passion for improving the lives of those affected by mental illness.