When I got to Bellevue, I would occasionally sing for the patients, but it happened less as I got older. He gradually dozed off while I was sewing, and I hummed to myself while the smell of the alcohol in his blood wafted toward my nose. He had been treated harshly already, beaten nearly to death, and I felt he deserved my tender ministrations. The music helped me to treat him kindly, to think of him as a baby who needed to be sung to sleep. I spent hours meticulously cleaning and sewing the man's numerous lacerations while singing lullabies: old James Taylor and Joni Mitchell songs, anything I could think of to keep me occupied and him distracted. We learned as we went along, often performing procedures we had only seen once, practicing on unsuspecting patients.) I was new at suturing, but my surgery resident thought it would be okay for me to practice on him. By the time he walked into the ER, he was a mess. She had several brothers who came looking for him. I remember one guy who beat up his girlfriend when he was drunk. During my surgery rotation in the emergency room, I would sometimes sing to my patients while I was suturing their wounds. In college and medical school, I played in a band, and I finally had to quit when third year rotations came around, but I never gave up on music. He would brag about how he had a recording contract pending, or a concert coming up, and I would nod my head appreciatively, trying not to wince as he strummed my acoustic guitar atonally. He was a big Jimi Hendrix fan, and I would let him play my guitar for his friends. There was another patient there who often wore dark sunglasses and expended a certain amount of energy trying to look cool, slouching on the couch, sucking on his teeth. I made a point of learning "Love Me Tender" so he could show off in front of the other patients on the unit. He didn't have the hair for it, but he could sing pretty well. There was one veteran who had a strong, fixed delusion that he was Elvis. (People think I'm crazy, dreaming my life away.) or Joe Walsh "Life's Been Good" (they say I'm crazy but it takes all my time.). I couldn't help but play songs that I thought would have special meaning, like John Lennon's Watching the Wheels. As a third year resident, I would sometimes bring my guitar to the Veteran's Hospital in the Bronx and play for the patients on the schizophrenia research ward, where I was the chief resident. There is nothing to do all day, and the walls are the same drab gray as the chairs, the food, and the staff. Being a patient on an inpatient psych ward can be a lonely, loveless experience.
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