Please, please, please...

Traumatic times on psychiatry the other day. We had to restrain a patient to do a simple procedure that the patient clearly did not want done. It was terrible to see. The patient was surrounded by 6 workers from the floor - 2 per leg and 1 on each arm. There were three doctors in the room - 2 doing the procedure and the patient's psychiatrist. And then there was me. The procedure wasn't physically painful, but it was mentally one of the worst things we could have done to this patient. It was a terrible specter to behold.

Screaming... crying... pleading... trying to wiggle out of the six firm grasps.

"My legs hurt! Please let go of my legs! Please don't do this! Please! Please! Please!"

I felt like I was watching some horror movie. Or a medieval torture scene. It was so uncomfortable being in that room as we treated the patient this way.

But it had to be done. The patient was so far gone that they couldn't listen to reason. They weren't even in charge of their own healthcare - there was a legal guardian making the decisions. And this wasn't a hard decision to make. The patient needed this procedure to keep them safe and hopefully help make them healthy again. It was a straight forward call, but one that the patient couldn't understand because of their mental illness and the altered perspective it gave them.

I know doing the procedure was the right move. I understand that from an academic perspective. But my heart has a problem accepting the suffering and pain sometimes. In that moment, standing in that room, I wanted more than anything to make the patient understand my perspective, why this needed to be done. But I just couldn't help. We had all tried to do this less painfully. And maybe we simply weren't creative enough to see how we could manage to make this easier. But how I wish I could remove this patient's suffering.