De-addicting Punjab

When I began my post-graduate degree in psychiatry two years ago I had imagined I would be sitting with a stethoscope around my neck behind a desk with the patient on the other side explaining psychiatric complaints to me calmly while I listened to them gently and wrote down prescriptions. Instead, as soon as I began my first year post-doc, in my routine duties dealing with drug addiction patients — interviewing, examining and counselling them — I found myself interacting with patients who were aggressive, impulsive, abusive and sometimes looked as if they would crush every bone in my body when they thought that I was not giving them the attention they demanded.