Really, You DO Want to Be a Psychiatrist

There are lots of reasons you might want to be a psychiatrist. At the top of your list may not be the schedule, but really, it should be. This is Birch's last week of his psychiatry rotation and he's spent the last few weeks with an hour and a half lunch break. Doesn't sound that bad but when you arrive at 8:00 and leave at 3:00 it makes for a pretty easy day.

At first he came home for lunch but then he worked with a doctor who wanted to share her lunchtime ritual with him in the hospital cafeteria: reading the Sheriff's Report from a southern Texas newspaper. Her grandmother lives there but she subscribes to the paper here just for entertainment.

In case you thought your neighborhood was sketchy, here are a few of the high "crimes" being reported in The Progress, a southern Texas small-town newspaper:

A male employee of a bank advised that someone had put an envelope in the door handle of the side door of the bank. Written on the envelope was "night deposit" and listed seven deposits and four loan payments. Inside the envelope were two candy bars.

A male caller said that his one year old son was playing with a rattlesnake tail and he had put it in his mouth. The caller wanted to know what he should do. He was transferred to poison control, where he was advised that there shouldn't be any venom on the tail unless it was dirty. He was told to be on the look out for swelling. If the tail was clean, it shouldn't be a problem.

A woman advised that she saw a gun transaction. She saw two male subjects in a parking lot, exchanging a gun. One male took the rifle out and the other male opened the trunk of his car and took the rifle out of the case and looked at it. Then he put the gun in the trunk of the car. The caller said that she snapped a picture with her camera phone. She found it weird and wants to speak to an officer.

For the full effect you need to read them with a Texas accent, as this psychiatrist read them during their lunch break. Birch brought a few papers home this week so he could show them to me. When we were done laughing Trevor asked: "I want to read another big silly!"