During the first four months of my fellowship in consult-liaison psychiatry, I consulted on 98 patients in the hospital. The following is a rough break-down of who these 98 individuals were and how they came to my attention. (Please note that I am not providing percentages because the total sum is close to 100.)

• 70 patients were male.
• 28 patients were female.
• 26 patients were over the age of 65.
• 7 patients, at the time of my initial evaluation, were in the ICU.
• At least 28 patients reported that they were actively using alcohol or drugs in quantities that had resulted in adverse social or legal consequences.
• 28 patients were either reporting or demonstrating hallucinations, endorsing bizarre delusions, or had a disorganized thought process (all suggestive of psychosis, due to whatever reason).
• 13 patients were prisoners.
• 15 patients either reported they wanted to kill themselves or were hospitalized because of their attempts.
• 14 patients did not speak English.
• 20 patients met criteria for cognitive impairment or dementia.
• For 9 patients, the primary medical or surgical teams chiefly wanted assistance with “behavioral problems”.
• At least 8 patients were delirious at the time of my evaluation.
• 4 patients were dying from cancer.
• For 19 patients, the primary treating teams wanted assessments of decisional capacity for specific interventions. Most of them were to assess if the patient had decisional capacity to refuse nursing home placement.
• 70 of the consult requests came from the internal medicine service.
• 10 of the consult requests came from a surgical service (I had a higher than expected number of requests from the urology service).
• 5 of the consult requests came from the physical medicine and rehabilitation service.
• 4 of the consult requests came from the neurology service.
• 1 consult request came from the pediatrics service.
• 3 patients seemed to meet criteria for conversion disorder.
• At least 10 patients were infected with HIV.
• The youngest patient I saw was 20 years of age.
• The oldest person I saw was 91 years of age.
• 1 patient probably met criteria for Asperger’s syndrome.
• 1 patient had confessed to murdering someone.
• 1 patient routinely asked me for money.
• No patients threatened to kill me.
• 1 patient threatened to hit me with his cane.
• 1 patient died while in the hospital.
• 1 patient asked me if I was happy.
• At least a dozen of the patients complained about the food in the hospital.

It’s a non-random sample. Take care in what conclusions you draw.