I'm the Clinical One!

In the last week or so, I have accomplished quite a lot at the lab--and I have suffered much to get there (isn't that how it goes sometimes?). I have come to a very interesting place, as a result.

It all started a couple of weeks ago (before spring break) when I ended up training to do blood work for the study, by default. They're training everyone to do everything, so this was my turn. Plus, they needed one person to work solo about a week into the future, so I volunteered. So, I trained. Blood work is something I've NEVER done before, and I really didn't feel good about it! I don't have a blood "issue" or anything, but it is just so tedious, with so much traveling and time constraints and detailed work in a typical lab setting (four white walls). I started feeling jealous that my colleagues with only a bachelor's degree were the ones interviewing the pregnant women who came in for the study--I am the one who is *this close* to getting a master's in clinical psychology and professional experience with pregnancy. No fair! I felt like stomping my feet.

Besides, at lab meetings, professors and assistants were at a loss to find someone who could really commit to doing the diagnostic interview full-force and with solid confidence. I kept my mouth shut in order to not interrupt the meeting. But, oh, how I wanted to be the one! They even talked about hiring a clinical psychologist (yeah, right--too expensive) or a PsyD student from a nearby professional psychology school. Ahem! Hello! That's practically ME!

I mean, I was also chomping-at-the-bit to get a job working for a psychologist doing assessments and interviews, so wouldn't that be great!! Calm down, Cindy, I told myself--I didn't want to butt in where I wasn't welcome.

Anyway, word got around to my supervisor that I didn't like the blood work, and she was fine with it. I told her I wanted to get into doing the diagnostic interview--that was a big interest of mine, I would love to hook up with one of these clinical psychologists that they were making contact with, I was trained in this type of interviewing, etc. She ran with it.

I had the opportunity to do the interview myself this week, when no one else was available. Whew! It's a doozie. For those of you who know, it's the SCID-IV (research version). I had someone with a LOT of symptoms. As luck (!) would have it, I had to end the interview early to get to work (can you say BAD!!), but as a result of that experience + a meeting with a clinical psychologist the next day (as a result of my prompting), another professor finally learned about my clinical background. I stuck my nose in and expressed my concern for the almost-total lack of referrals we have for the moms who present with symptoms (yeah, another BAD), as well as my lab colleagues' casual attitude about the SCID (when I expressed my displeasure at ending the interview early, one said it was okay, we did one while she was pregnant to get past history, which we didn't...and the other said, don't worry, we got the depression part, that's all that matters!), I am now becoming the on-site SCID expert for the study!!

The funny thing is, I am one of the only people in the lab to bring up issues such as, well, hmmm...If we are supposed to do the full interview, we have to do the full interview!! There is so MUCH data to be gained from this, rather than JUST a diagnosis. I know this because of my own thesis--I'm gaining PUBLISHABLE data from interview responses that specifically do not qualify for a DSM-IV diagnosis!!! Plus, I guess it takes a near-shrink to realize that some people aren't even very familiar with the particulars of DSM-IV diagnostic criteria/symptoms (especially bachelors-level psych majors or health psych grad students), let alone reliability among clinical psychologists who do this for a living, so this needs to be taken seriously. And wouldn't it be an ethical, if not clearly an inaccuracy, issue to have inadequately trained para-professionals doing a diagnostic interview without any type of supervision?! Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

Sometimes it's hard to be a professional. The more you know, the more complicated things become.

Anyway, there are so many good things to come out of this--I get to attain the EXACT type of experience that I want to gain, I will be happier, the study will be run much better and will have appropriate staffing for this task, and women will be served better by our resources and our more-accurate data. At the end of the day, these are very good things. It's satisfying to know that I am helping in this way!