REVIEW
service among many other firsts. Dr. Holland came to Bellevue as
an attending psychiatrist because of its reputation and notoriety for
the wide variety of psychiatric maladies suffered by those who are
brought there by police, EMS and even some walk-ins.
In this beautifully written book, she narrates her own journey
through medical school and residency. Her most absorbing tales
deal with patients whose stories are tragic, terrifying, amusing and
sad, the human stories that teach us tremendously about a deranged
psyche. Her candor and honesty shines through as she is quite
transparent about her empathy (or lack thereof, on occasions) and
also grappling with her own inadequacies and personal struggles
in dealing with difficult situations.
There are some very tender moments regarding a special young
colleague in the Psych ER, who was diagnosed with cancer, fought it
and died. She writes also about the intrigues of academia, the dramas
of dealing with different personalities, the work-related differences
of opinions and perspectives, and the inevitable petty jealousies.
with muggings, gunshot wounds, stabbings, rapes, mania, drug
overdoses, along with run-of-the-mill GI bleedings, chest pains,
arrhythmias and heart attacks. Eventually, an incidental opportu-
nity for a cardiology fellowship at the University of Illinois at the
Medical Center became available and the late Dr. Kenneth Rosen
(an electrophysiology pioneer) was very kind to give me that job.
Dr. Julie Holland was ready to leave her Bellevue Psych ER job
after nine years and currently works as a psychiatrist in her private
practice in New York. The final paragraph states:
“My nine years at CPEP—(Comprehensive Psychiatric Emer-
gency Program, The Psychiatric ER at Bellevue), like an extended
gestation, helped to make me what I am—a better doctor, a better
mother, and a writer. I walked into that asylum one person, and
walked out another. I didn’t alter the machine—I’m not sure anyone
could have—but it surely had its way with me.”
Dr. Seyal practices cardiovascular diseases with Floyd Memorial Medical
Group-River Cities Cardiology.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and it brought back
wonderful learning experiences and memories of my own work
as a medical supervisor of an emergency department for three and
a half years in uptown Chicago, at the Louis A. Weiss Memorial
Hospital where I had finished my internal medicine residency.
It was a busy place, with an active “knife and gun club” dealing
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OCTOBER 2018
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