Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R. by Julie Holland

Nov 03, 2009 Elby rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Elby by: Daughter gave me an advanced copy. Wasn't that nice?

Julie Holland, M.D. is the weekend night shift doctor at Bellevue Psych Ward for nine years. Her job isn't particularly difficult unless there is night where the sheer volume of people coming through the door is overwhelming. By her own admission, she isn't very good at her job. From the stories she relates, you can take her at her word that she isn't very good at her job.

Staying with this book through the first half is difficult because the author is so unlikable. She is much more interested in...more Julie Holland, M.D. is the weekend night shift doctor at Bellevue Psych Ward for nine years. Her job isn't particularly difficult unless there is night where the sheer volume of people coming through the door is overwhelming. By her own admission, she isn't very good at her job. From the stories she relates, you can take her at her word that she isn't very good at her job.

Staying with this book through the first half is difficult because the author is so unlikable. She is much more interested in convincing the reader how hip and cool she is based on admissions such as, she slept her way through the whole surgical team during her internship, no matter the marital status of any member. She was in a band and could have been a rock star. She did drugs. She's terribly witty, just ask her. Oh wait, you don't have to, she says so herself repeatedly.

I will give her credit for being very forthcoming and honest about herself and her personal life. I just don't think she gets she should be embarrassed about most of her character failings and instead continues to brag on them. She completely abandons her best friend during her dying and death, she flees NYC with her family the morning of the terrorist attack on the towers instead of running straight to the hospital like every other staff member, medical or not did, and she positions patients under a t.v. with their back to it and sits across from them so if the patient is too boring while being interviewed, she can watch t.v. instead of listening.

She puts herself into therapy for three years. (Of course.) Dr. Holland occasionally has epiphanies, or sudden insights into how she should have behaved or reacted, but they serve her only for the moment and are lost on her the next time a situation arises where she could have put the useful information into play. She seems to truly want to be a better person, and maybe she'll get there, but she's probably going to have to live a very long time to finish baking.

When she is concentrating on the goings on at the hospital the true tragedy of mental illness, and the astounding lack of care for those afflicted is heart wrenching. Given the policy is "get them on their feet and out the door" we don't get details of the life of the patient, just the circumstances that landed them in the psych E.R. There are numerous, sad, tragic, hopeless, and dangerous examples in this book. This book is more about the workings of the hospital than case studies though. Mostly what I gleaned from this book is any mental health care worker is probably more screwed up than I am, maybe just a little more functional allowing them to hide their illness better.

Dr. Holland writes the last chapter of this book as being sympathetic and kind to the mentally ill in society. She makes a very good case but it so conflicts with the preceding chapters of the book and how she behaved towards the mentally ill, I have to wonder if she or someone else wrote this chapter. In her Acknowledgments, Dr.Holland writes, "Simone Solondz boldly recommended I cut out some of the most provocative and objectionable stories." And, "Elizabeth Stein helped me to make some painful cuts and sutures." I'm guessing these were personal stories and not patient related.

Despite every criticism thus far, I did enjoy reading this book. It was extremely honest, a fast paced read, did offer valuable insight into the doctor treating the patient and what a thin line it is that lies between them. I wish Dr.Holland well on her journey.(less)

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Sep 11, 2010 Wanda rated it 1 of 5 stars

I will start by saying that this book was a crashing bore. If you go into the reading of this book to learn about mental illnesses, you will be disappointed. If you go into it to take a journey of self discovery by the author, you will be disappointed. I listened to it on CD and several times forced myself not to skip whole sections. For example, the litany of morning report – who came into the ED last night, what their diagnosis is and the circumstances of their admission to Bellevue. Over and...more I will start by saying that this book was a crashing bore. If you go into the reading of this book to learn about mental illnesses, you will be disappointed. If you go into it to take a journey of self discovery by the author, you will be disappointed. I listened to it on CD and several times forced myself not to skip whole sections. For example, the litany of morning report – who came into the ED last night, what their diagnosis is and the circumstances of their admission to Bellevue. Over and over and over. Who cares? And listening to the me, me, me, me self absorption and self referential meanderings of this author was like listening to a dial tone.
In "Weekends at Bellevue” the reader is fed a titillating smorgasbord of modern psychiatry -- narcissism, toxic relationship issues, ambiguity, conflict, and sexual obsession that seems an awful lot like what they used to call nymphomania. And most of it is about the author, psychiatrist Julie Holland who worked the weekend overnight shift at Bellevue from 1996 to 2005.
I have been in Holland’s situation and felt frustrated beyond reason with the tragedy of mental illnesses and the criminal inability of the U.S. health care system (and I use that word loosely) to actually care for those suffering from them. But, the big difference is that I did not lose my own “hair trigger empathy response” and when I felt walls going up, I switched over to a different venue in psych. Not so with Holland.
Actually, I read the plethora of negative reviews on this book, and I was determined to cut this woman a break. Throughout the book I kept hoping for something more than a wallowing and self indulgent recital of every thought this woman ever had. Stories and memoirs about physicians can illuminate the beauty and strength of the human spirit and can take us on a journey of self exploration and growth. Cutting for Stone and My Own Country by Abraham Verghese come to mind. But Holland is no Verghese and her memoir exploits a voyeuristic impulse to consume other people's suffering for entertainment.
A dark humor and what R.J. Lifton calls “psychological doubling” is a necessary defense in emergency work, but steadily engaging in it will take hold of a professional and strip them of their humanity. Parenthetically, Lifton also speaks to this. Holland should have spared herself all the dollars and hours in therapy and read her fellow psychiatrist’s articles and books on the subject. She would have seen herself in them – but this is a woman who has little insight or and is probably too arrogant to be able to engage in this kind of self reflection.
I agreed with most of the negative reviews on Amazon and G.R. but was surprised that no one mentioned that no self respecting psychiatrist in this day and age should constantly refer to people who are unfortunate to have an illness by their illness. Although professionals often use a jargon as a shorthand and call people with bipolar disorder “bipolar” or people with schizophrenia “schizophrenics” it has been hammered by the advocacy community into all our heads that people are not their illnesses. Once we think of them this way, they lose their status as human beings. This constant reference to “schizophrenics” and “bipolar” and “druggies” annoyed me to no end and also served as one more piece of evidence that this woman fails to see anything beyond herself and her own issues. Another piece of evidence when speaking to a person with psychosis, she tells us, is "a lot like talking to a dumb kid, only it's more pathetic." Pathetic. Does anyone want to be thought of as pathetic by their physician?
In a nutshell this book sets out to convey the toll that the devastating phenomenon that is mental illness takes on both patients and the professionals who care for them, but Dr. Holland's issues clearly began long before she was responsible for other people's mental health. She is also clearly engaged with only one patient – herself – she is just the kind of psychiatric professional that makes the rest of us cringe when we find them in the profession.
Don’t bother to spend your money on this book. I am glad I got it from the library.
Oh, a final thing, the audio-book has a photo of a goofy looking woman in surgical scrubs, cap, and mask. Did the publishers even go outside their heads to see what shrinks wear? They certainly do not dress as though they are going into the surgical suite.
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Aug 13, 2012 Jennifer Kronk rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, psychology-self-help-recovery, library-book

I feel like this book is very misrepresented in some of the reviews below. So I would like to clear up a few points while the story is still fresh in my head. First, Dr. Holland did not sleep her way through the entire surgical team. She slept with a few of them, it's true, but so what? It wasn't illegal and it wasn't something that she did to further her career. She was single and had consensual sex. Second, she does not say that talking with a mentally ill person is like talking to a slightly...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Meaghan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs, medicine, read-in-2010, psychology, mental-hospital

Meh. I was expecting to love this book -- I'd heard good things about it and it's about one of my favorite topics (that is, mental illness and its' treatment; I have a mental illness myself). But instead I found it merely "okay" and awfully self-indulgent.

Of course, with any personal narrative you have to allow for some self-indulgence, but the author was supposed to be writing about her job, not her personal life. I thought Dr. Holland would focus more on the patients she encountered, rather th...more

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Feb 21, 2010 Chana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american, first-reads, memoirs-and-biographies, psychology, sociology

Dr. Julie Holland shares her experiences working the Psych ER at Bellevue Hospital in NYC for 9 years. She also tells us about her medical training and her family life.
This is a quick and easy read, it is interesting and informative. I don't always like her, I don't always agree with everything she says; but she commands respect and some of the things that she said are things that I will think about in my own life. As the parent of a child newly on a psych med the book came to me at an appropri...more

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Aug 02, 2009 Abby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2009

Dr. Holland tells brisk, engaging tales about the nine years she spent in the psychiatric emergency room at Bellevue Hospital. Her sarcastic, competent tone comes clearly through, which can be distracting or appealing, depending on the reader’s preference. Holland bravely and honestly details the highs and lows of being an emergency room psychiatrist – complete with internal feuds, sexual harassment, and the detrimental effect to one’s own psyche. Holland’s stories move along at a rapid, engross...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Carissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs, medical

This book was somewhat uneven but utterly readable. I even had my sci-fi-only-reading boyfriend pick it up and then keep coming back until he had finished it even before I did. The subject matter alone is pretty interesting, but it's matched with a biting, creative, and unpredictable writing style that really infuses the personality of the author into the work. [return]I do feel like the title/subtitle and synopsis sell the work as more of a series of stories about the hospital and its workings,...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Melissa Cuevas rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: research

I picked this up as research because I have a main character who has been involved in the mental health system as a patient, and I was looking for some insight into what he would have been through, and I certainly got it, just not in a good way.

There isn't much at all about the patients in this work, because as the author says, to her they are transitory, peripheral. Since it lacks that connection, it has to hold its own on the weight of a connection with the author. And quite bluntly, she's un...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Lily Roth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book accounts the life of Julie Holland, a Psychologist in Belluvue’s Psych ER. In this book Holland accounts the nine years of her life she spent as a Psychologist at Bellevue’s Psych ER. Holland accounts the stories of the people she as accounted while working in the ER. Holland talks a lot about the things that she sees. Her tone is quite sarcastic but by the use of large words it is clear to the reader that she is well educated. Through the book it is clear the Holland is a normal perso...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Converse rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: medicine, memoir, psychology, non-fiction

From the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, Dr. Holland worked weekends at Bellevue hospital, a large public hospital in New York City. Although sometimes thought of as only a mental hospital, Bellevue actually cares for both mental and physical ailments. As most of her work hours were concentrated during two 15 hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday, she had most of the week free to do other things. During this time she got married, established a private practice, and had two children. After the s

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From the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, Dr. Holland worked weekends at Bellevue hospital, a large public hospital in New York City. Although sometimes thought of as only a mental hospital, Bellevue actually cares for both mental and physical ailments. As most of her work hours were concentrated during two 15 hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday, she had most of the week free to do other things. During this time she got married, established a private practice, and had two children. After the second child, she realized she was becoming burned out treating the severely mentally ill patients that came into the psychiatric emergency room, and gave up her position at Bellevue while retaining her private practice. Holland is a psychiatrist; in her private practice she concentrates on determining the appropriate combinations and dosages of psychoactive drugs for patients, as opposed to engaging in talk therapy.

In the beginning of the book, she notes that she has selected the more memorable experiences from her work at Bellvue. Persons suffering from garden-variety clinical depression, though apparently a common occurence at Bellevue, don't show up much in the narrative. The book is not a tightly woven narrative, but more of a series of vignettes in mostly chronological order. She also talks about her time in medical school and as a resident at Mt. Sinai hospital.

Unlike me (I would have run the other way), Dr. Holland seems to have been fascinated by the mentally ill from an early age, noticing with wonder the schizophrenics she saw in Boston when she and parents traveled into the city from the suburbs. Even as an undergraduate she took part in research on the mentally ill.

Two basic activities appeared to dominate her work at Bellvue. First, persons who arrived on their own or were brought in by an ambulance because they were acting oddly needed to be evaluated according to two criteria; 1) was the person a danger to themselves? or 2)was the person a danger to others? Those who do not fall into one of these categories would be released after an interview, possibly with a follow up appointments, after being giving medication, or with other planned treatments. As Bellvue is a more comfortably place to spend the night than the city's dangerous homeless shelters, there is a constant trickle of people who are faking mental illness in order to get a bed out the rain. Those who are deemed after an interview to be a danger to themselves or others can be involuntarily admitted if they do not voluntarily sign themselves in. Most of the patients are both severely mentally ill (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, severely depressed to the point of suicide) and also alcoholic or seriously abusing serious illegal drugs, such as PCP (which seems to be the worst) or cocaine. Whether or not someone is admitted to the hospital from the psychiatric emergency room is in part a function of how many beds are available in the various wards. There are separate wards for male prisoners with mental problems (women prisoners go to another hospital after being evaluated at Bellvue), for non-prisoners with psychological problems, for those with both psychological and drug abuse problems, and even for the large population of New Yorkers who speak only an east Asian language.

The second major activity in the Bellvue appears to be the evaluation of the mental state of those arrested by the New York City Police. The object here is to determine if they are sufficiently sane to be arraigned. Once again there is a problem of trying to weed out those who are faking symptoms because they figure Bellvue is more comfortable than the jail on Rikers Island. She also needed to weed out the sociopaths, who although definitely disturbed are not considered mentally ill, and who are a danger to the truly mentally ill. Because all this processing has to be done on the basis of brief interviews, the possibility for error is high. The saddest people Dr. Holland saw were those prisoners who were at Bellvue because they had attempted suicide in jail.

I wished Dr. Holland had written a bit more about the relationship between mental illness and substance abuse. At some points she seems to be implying that the drug abuse was sometimes a way of responding to the mental illness. This made me have several questions: Were any of street drugs useful in improving the mental state of the patients? Or did the mental illness result from the drug use? Did the mental illness come first, and then the drug abuse?

Holland also had her own psychological issues to work thorugh. Apparently as a result of her father's desire to toughen up his kids by denying approval to those acting insuffiently stoic, she had a tendency to be mean (verbally) especially towards her patients who were also prisoners. She got too much obvious enjoyment out of,for example, catching people who were faking mental illness, in order to have someplace safe to sleep or to stay away from the jail for a while. She spent three years in psychotherapy during her first few years at Bellvue; apparently it is a common professional experience for psychiatrist. The therapy made her more sympathetic towards the patients; being slugged by one also probably helped. another aspect of her personal life that comes up are her sexual exploits before marriage, which made me uncomfortable, and possibly also envious. She can go on a bit about her personal life, her poor relationship with one of her superivisors, and be narcissistic; unlike other reviewers, I'm not sure that this isn't simply honesty.

Although generally comfortable around the mentally ill, at least those who don't seem likely to slug her, the doctor does seem to have difficulty dealing with friends and co-workers who are experiencing terminal illness or grief. She rarely visited her friend and supervisor Lucy, when the latter was going through the terminal aspects of a recurrence of breast cancer at an early age. Dr. Holland also couldn't offer up even the conventional expressions of sympathy towards one of the members of the hospital police whose child was killed in a hit and run.

Holland notes that severe mental illness seems to be commonly brought on by being abused as a child. For an adult, the death of a child is also often a trigger for mental illness. She concludes that the line between sanity and insanity rather porous. She wishes the United States would find a better way of dealing with the mentally ill, one that keeps them with their families (who often give up on there severely mentally ill members from exhaustion) and which doesn't concentrate the mentally ill together, a process that makes the illnesses more severe. In one of the later chapters, Dr. Holland notes that she has seen both the rich and poor suffering severe mental disturbance. She seems to conclude from these observations that any one is equally likely to suffer from psychosis. I am not so sure; a large majority of her patients would seem to be poor rather than rich. Of course, it is also plausible the relationship between severe mental illness and wealth is the other way around; being severely mentally ill would make holding any job, let alone a good one, impossible.

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Jun 18, 2012 stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, addiction, crazypeoplememoirs, memoirs, psychology, would-never-rec

well, i suppose i should thank julie holland for reinforcing yet again why i think psychotherapy is better than psychiatry at least in terms of where i want to be and what i want to be doing with my life.

this is a woman that loves to push pills. don't get me wrong, i am certainly not against psychopharmocology. but three days a week in private practice, dr. holland has 20-30 minute sessions where she convinces people to go on psychiatric meds, and then lets them go. she is dismissive of psychoth...more well, i suppose i should thank julie holland for reinforcing yet again why i think psychotherapy is better than psychiatry at least in terms of where i want to be and what i want to be doing with my life.

this is a woman that loves to push pills. don't get me wrong, i am certainly not against psychopharmocology. but three days a week in private practice, dr. holland has 20-30 minute sessions where she convinces people to go on psychiatric meds, and then lets them go. she is dismissive of psychotherapy (despite the fact that we hear oh so much about her and mary, her own therapist for three years) and while i certainly agree that some diagnoses (bi-polar, schizophrenia) warrant a drug regimen almost without thought, i do not agree that the worried well she treats in her private practice necessarily need all the prozac, paxil and lamictal they can withstand. i am sure she's charging somewhere between $350 and $450 for it, as well. sure, julie, you can start to "dig deep" with these patients now that you've quit bellevue. sure.

even her assessments leave something to be desired - she rarely sees the complicated patients, giving those instead to the resident. instead she focuses on the "T&R"'s - where her job is basically to decide if the person is suicidal or not - in the briefest of terms. i understand that her job puts demands and limits on what she can do in the ER. but i still think you can do that and be compassionate. besides, you don't even have time to get through ANY of the standardized assessments, much less motives, in the time she gives to these patients. i'd like to see her try to give a hamilton depression inventory while watching tv because her patient is "boring".

she is so arrogant, "butch" and basically condescending toward all her patients that it makes me sad.

clearly, holland has issues with loss. when her best friend becomes sick, she withdraws and leaves her to deal with the knowledge of her death alone (all the while resenting daniel, the one doctor that doesn't ignore lucy's illness and works along side her), when 9/11 hits, she hides in a bath tub with her daughter upstate and doesn't come in (everyone deals with trauma like this differently, i know, but dang, it was her job), and mostly she sees the world as revolving around her and everyone only in reference to her. who cares what daniel was going through? who cared really about lucy's daily struggle with her illness and her fears? who even really cared about the patients in handcuffs in the middle of the night in a locked ward while dr. holland taunted them, holding all the keys to the castle?

i found a lot of what dr. holland did, said and thought morally reprehensible. especially when she admits that she lied to a patient about what meds she was giving him, and got the medical student in it, and got her lying too. i mean, what the hell? i get that the end justify the means sometimes. i do. i really, really do. but she manages to trivialize everything that these people are suffering through.

this was no step forward for mental illness. and that makes me quite disappointed. but maybe if i just get myself some psychotropic meds, i'll get over it! (less)

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Dec 08, 2011 Steven Belanger rated it 5 of 5 stars

Fascinating book about a woman who had been in charge of deciding who does, and does not, get admitted to a stay at Bellevue. She did this for nine years. Obviously the book is about many of the patients, but the coolest thing about the book is the sheer number of other things it's also very much about: admitting you're crisped at your job; branching out; moving on with life; the different forms of mental illness; how we're all mentally ill, in varying degrees. Having the courage to switch gears...more Fascinating book about a woman who had been in charge of deciding who does, and does not, get admitted to a stay at Bellevue. She did this for nine years. Obviously the book is about many of the patients, but the coolest thing about the book is the sheer number of other things it's also very much about: admitting you're crisped at your job; branching out; moving on with life; the different forms of mental illness; how we're all mentally ill, in varying degrees. Having the courage to switch gears in life. Changing as a person. Letting down your often necessary defenses--and then realizing that doing so makes you incapable of doing the job you needed the defenses for to begin with. I saw a lot of myself in here, and a couple of family members and friends--and a few ex-friends. It helped me to understand all of them better in small, but important, ways.

It's a quick read. You may grit your teeth at the oddly sudden and thorough instances of her sexual interludes, as I did, though I understood they were meant to underscore her adrenaline addiction. All of the psychopathy stories are quick snippets, from the unknown patients, to Spalding Gray and the aftereffects of 9/11 on NYC. She doesn't linger too long on any one person or event, but mentions the big ones long enough to sustain the shock and horror they instilled in her and everyone else. Many of her patients, for example, saw dozens of professionally attired men jump out of the WTC to their deaths. She says that, more than any other facet of the attacks, it was this that mostly traumatized and PTSDed her patients--watching the bodies fall. And land. Her narrative voice skims and occasionally probes, while at the same time staying far enough away from the patients so the reader doesn't feel like a morbid voyeur, rubber-necking at the psychopathic miseries of others.

I read this because I thought such a character had a place in one of my novels--where else, perhaps, would a possibly real, re-visiting Jesus or Lazarus be sent, after all, but to a place like Bellevue? I don't know that such a plan would work now, but I liked the experience of reading this to find out. It took two days to read. Highly recommended.(less)

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Oct 04, 2011 D Books rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This particular piece of work is an autobiography from an author of a former psych ER doctor who used to work the renowned Bellevue hospital of New York City. I would say that the book is a mixture of the author’s personal life, mixed in with her time spent as a psych doctor; the mixture being half and half. The patients that are mentioned in this book are sad, but what is even sadder and scarier are the times when this doctor describes her care of these patients. There are times when she is car...more

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Feb 14, 2011 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

For some reason, I couldn't settle on a book to enjoy in the days leading up to Christmas, and I've no idea why. Maybe because I'd been running around like a crazy person with school and home renovations and holiday preparations? So perhaps I chose Holland's book unconsciously as a way to make sure that I'm not as crazy as I feel. I guess it worked, and so I got my money's worth out of the book. But I don't think I would recommend it to other readers, really.

Don't get me wrong - it's a page tur...more

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Oct 28, 2010 Chibineko rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. When I first heard about this book, I was pretty eager to read it. I'd heard about Bellevue (the hospital, not the book) from many of the medical staff I work with at the ER I work at. I also figured that even though I'm not a doctor, I'd be able to relate to some of Holland's stuff because hey... crazy is universal. What I ended up with was a book that was "ok", but sort of unsatisfying.

The book documents Julie Holland's time at Bellevue, from when she was a resident to when she resigned in ord...more When I first heard about this book, I was pretty eager to read it. I'd heard about Bellevue (the hospital, not the book) from many of the medical staff I work with at the ER I work at. I also figured that even though I'm not a doctor, I'd be able to relate to some of Holland's stuff because hey... crazy is universal. What I ended up with was a book that was "ok", but sort of unsatisfying.

The book documents Julie Holland's time at Bellevue, from when she was a resident to when she resigned in order to spend more time with her family & her office practice. Between the cases of the strange & bizarre, Holland talks about her personal life as well as her relationship with the ill-fated doctor called Lucy.

Really & truthfully, I was mostly disappointed because while the book does go over quite a bit of material, Holland really never opens up to the reader. I felt like I was only given the bare minimum of her existence & as a result I found it really hard to empathize with her. It just felt more like she was writing a story about an ER psych doctor rather than her own life experiences. At times I kind of got the impression that she had this vision of her book being turned into a chick flick, like it should automatically be that good of a book. I can't entirely describe the impressions I got from reading this, but ultimately I felt like Holland came off as very smug while she wrote this book. I liked the book enough to finish it, but ultimately I have to say that I'm disappointed. This book could've been so much better, had it gone through at least one more rewrite or if Holland had REALLY opened up about everything. At one point during the reading I couldn't help but think that the book really should've been about Lucy, as she was far more interesting than Holland was. I have to admit that I was also distracted by how the book occasionally jumps around time-wise, with the plot being linear, then going into a saga about when she was a resident or from a few years ago.

As it was, Holland missed a great chance to write a book about how really hard it is to get through a residency & then how hard it is to become an attending physician at one of the most well known psychiatric hospitals. Instead Holland makes the whole process seem as "easy" as if it were an episode of 'Grey's Anatomy' or 'ER', with hookups happening around every corner & far less emphasis on how horribly grueling the whole process is. (While the docs & residents at my hospital aren't sexually deprived, they certainly aren't humping everything that moves or getting it on in the call room! Not that they wouldn't if they had the chance, it's just that there is no time for any of that! Holland must have gotten a princess residency!)

If you are looking for something that goes in depth about how insanely difficult it is to become a doctor or be one, this isn't the book for you. If you're looking for something that gives details about Bellevue's psychiatric ER, this isn't that either. Holland could be describing any hospital in the world. If you're looking for something to kill a few hours & give you a teensy bit of voyeuristic entertainment, then pick this book up. Just not right away- wait for it to go on sale, get it at the library or for it to go to paperback first. It's not a bad book, it's just one of those books that afterwards you just go "meh". (less)

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Sep 08, 2010 Jonny99 rated it 1 of 5 stars

A staid view of Crazytown. In today’s reality-soaked media, the true-life tales of the crazies who drift or are dragged into the world capital of crazy – Bellevue Hospital in New York City – sounds like it would offer compelling stories and purulent fascinations. Turns out not so much. Julie Holland’s text keeps the spotlight mostly on her life during weekends at the hospital rather than those parts of the lives carried out by the drug addicts and schizophrenics its serves during their time in t...more

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Aug 08, 2010 Alice rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Grey's Anatomy junkies, people with serious experience in the psych ward

This is a serious departure from my usual pleasure reading. There are no teenagers, neurotic New Yorkers, scrappy dystopian societies, or fashionistas to be found. It's not even fiction! I picked this up at random from the New shelf at the NYPL and enjoyed it quite a bit. Holland has a good solid voice that reminded me of Kelly Cutrone, except I gave her book one star. Same sort of ballsy, macho, butch straight girl vibe. Julie does a rockstar job processing intakes at Bellevue, the most famous...more

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Mar 09, 2010 Kat Hagedorn rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, non-fiction

http://tinyurl.com/ntrk3l

I now never want to go see the doctor again.

Yes, I knew doctors were fallible, but like this? The stories she tells (and which are clearly only sidebars related to the main tale) of the sneakiness, anger and most disturbing of all, the pride of these men and women that keep them from providing decent care to patients-- I just didn't want to know this. I want to know that my doctors are well-trained, alert to my problems, willing to listen to me, and not so dang heavy wit...more

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Mar 02, 2010 Goddess1871 rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book began with such promise. I was intrigued with Dr. Holland after hearing her on some news show on NPR and decided to give it a go.

While the title, Weekends at Bellvue, and the introductory pages imply case studies of the cases there and lessons learned, I quickly got the feeling that this was more a memoir about Dr. Holland herself and generally her transformation from an eager, curious student, into a narcissistic, self-absorbed doctor who is more interested (despite her protestation

...more

This book began with such promise. I was intrigued with Dr. Holland after hearing her on some news show on NPR and decided to give it a go.

While the title, Weekends at Bellvue, and the introductory pages imply case studies of the cases there and lessons learned, I quickly got the feeling that this was more a memoir about Dr. Holland herself and generally her transformation from an eager, curious student, into a narcissistic, self-absorbed doctor who is more interested (despite her protestations to the contrary) in maintaining what she perceives to be her "badass" image than treating many of her patients with a modicum of dignity.

I also couldn't quite shake the feeling that this was also Dr. Holland's chance to tell the world what a jerk Daniel was to her. She spends quite a lot of time talking about how awful Daniel is, how dismissive he was of her. In some ways, I have to wonder if she was jealous of Daniel, who took the time to be with their supervisor Lucy, who was dying of breast cancer, while she couldn't...or wouldn't.

Works like this often end with the author reflecting upon how he or she has grown and become a better person, and how the tragedy he or she has witnessed has changed them forever. Not so with Dr. Holland. Perhaps I was jaded by the end, but it was difficult for me to mentally pat Dr. Holland on the back for fleeing Bellvue for her family's second home in Cape Cod, wondering if her legacy remained intact. Perhaps the final pages describe it best, as she recalled how Lucy would open a random page of the copy of the New Testament in the nurses' station for guidance. Dr. Holland merely states that she wants Weekends at Bellvue to be right there next to it. One would think that she of all people would be moved by the endless sadness and heartbreak, but what I personally got from it was her wanting validation from her readers for "transcending" the grit and unhappiness that is Bellvue's emergency ward. Sorry, Dr. Holland, not everyone gets to practice three days a week and weekend in New England.

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Feb 22, 2010 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

In this admittedly disjointed memoir, Holland reveals just what it takes to run the weekend shift at one of America's most famous mental hospitals for almost a decade. Not one to sugarcoat reality, Holland paints a disturbing picture of our current mental healthcare priorities, and quite frankly of herself. I'll admit there were plenty of aspects of her life and personality which I found off-putting, but the raw honesty she displays is a testament to her commitment. I'm not sure I'd choose Holla...more

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Jan 14, 2010 Shawna rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was an interesting read and I admire the author for showing us who she is, warts and all. That said, she did not come off as all that compassionate. She talked a lot about how sensitive she was, and had to put up defenses against everything she saw at Bellevue--but we aren't really shown that side of her. We hear about her bravado, her flirting, her flippant dismissals of people who she believes are faking, but seem to clearly be in need of some sort of care. She threatens to medicate unrul...more

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Jan 02, 2010 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm giving the good doctor Holland one more star than many reviewers. I liked this book for several reasons. As one points out, it does have more in common with a memoir than a clinical psych text, but why should that matter? Clearly, when working in a psych ward, the person's gonzo perspective is extremely important.
Dr. Holland did a good job explaining life in the ward, and the sprinkling of Beatles lyrics added a personal touch that many writers scrub out of their books. Additionally, I don't...more

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Dec 20, 2009 Felicity rated it 3 of 5 stars

OK, first of all, my oft-stated criticism of people in their thirties who write memoirs. And yes, this is a memoir. If you get details of someone's sex life, their psychotherapy, wedding, pregnancies, and journey from freshman year to attending physician, then, yes, it's a memoir. If I think it's a problem, I shouldn't read them, but I didn't realize it was a memoir when I picked it up...and I'm not going to begrudge her that too much (this time). But really, no one's life is that important in t...more

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Aug 28, 2009 Tara Chevrestt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, arc, memoir

This is my first medical memoir and I enjoyed it immensely. For me, it was educational, as well as entertaining. The world behind the automatic doors of Bellevue hospital is exposed to us thru the eyes and experiences of Julie Holland, M.D. Julie exposes the nitty, gritty, funny, strange, and just plain sad cases that walk in the door either by choice or in cuffs for her to assist, interview, or diagnose. Among the many attempted suicides, there is a lady that walked across the bridge carrying t...more

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Oct 27, 2009 Dorrit rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle, non-fiction, biography-memoir

It's not entirely clear to me why Dr. Holland chose to tell her story, or, at least, to tell it as she did. In a recent NPR interview she sounded a great deal more sensible and grounded than she sounds in Weekends at Bellevue where she comes across as the petulant, aggressive, badly-behaved doctor we all hope never to see. Although she tried to illustrate her evolution from an immature, whiny, insecure resident to a caring, respected healer, she apparently never entirely overcame her aggressive...more

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Nov 23, 2009 Emily rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, on-shelf-at-library-so-why-not

This is an ultimately disappointing account of the author's years spent as the weekend attending of the Bellevue psych emergency room. In this role she treated the most mentally ill of NYC, including drug addicts and criminals. You'd imagine that the author would have reams of material, but swaths of this book felt forced and irrelevant. It's as if her editor told her that she need more: so write down 20 ideas, now expand each of those into five pages. The author's wedding, relationship with her...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-borrow, memoir, ebook, non-fiction, read-in-2011

I enjoyed Weekends at Bellevue although I was surprised that it focused more on Dr. Holland and her personal experience & therapy vs. that of her patients. It was still interesting to read about how she had to harden herself emotionally, how important it is for psych doctors to have their own therapy so that they don't project onto their patients. The bits of information about the patient side is more generic. While she covers a few out-of-the-norm cases, you are left with the impression tha...more

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Dec 08, 2009 Matthew rated it 3 of 5 stars

I heard the NPR interview with Dr. Holland, in which this sounded like a great book with lots of potential. Some chapters deliver on that, some do not. I enjoyed much of the medical aspects of this book, and even would appreciate the 'political' angle, if she had not seemed so immature and threatened. What I did not see a need for was a description of the sexual escapades during medical school, the sexual orientation of several staff members brought to the forefront of the story, and the neveren...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Andres rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: medical, arcs

I should point out two things that may influence my 5-star review: 1) medical narratives fascinate me completely, and 2) I've grown up hearing the kinds of stories found in this memoir from a family member who has worked in a similar setting. So right from the start this book grabbed my attention and just 2 days later left me looking for other similar titles.

The author shares her almost decade long experience working at the Bellevue Comprehensive Psychiatry Emergency Program (CPEP), which is the...more I should point out two things that may influence my 5-star review: 1) medical narratives fascinate me completely, and 2) I've grown up hearing the kinds of stories found in this memoir from a family member who has worked in a similar setting. So right from the start this book grabbed my attention and just 2 days later left me looking for other similar titles.

The author shares her almost decade long experience working at the Bellevue Comprehensive Psychiatry Emergency Program (CPEP), which is the "regular" emergency room equivalent for those who are mentally distressed or unstable. The bulk of the story focuses on her years working the weekend overnight shifts, chronicling the patients she encounters and tries to help, and how it affects her over time.

This is warts-and-all account and the inclusion of some sexual peccadilloes is in line with her honest reporting of all her personal battles, including growing frustrations with patients and the start of professional burnout. The patients she writes about are always interesting but limited to the time she spends with them, which is minimal because as she points out toward the end of the book, she only cares for them in a triage setting, helping them get better enough to go elsewhere for (hopefully) longer term care. It is this lack of extended care that eventually wears on the doctor because with the typical severity of the disease afflicting her patients she comes to learn it's better to imagine they've gotten better after leaving the emergency room than to be weighed down with knowledge that, more often than not, they haven't.

This is a very illuminating work about mental health and how it affects patients, doctors, and their families. It is also a telling example of the battle doctors face when they have to have just enough compassion for the patients to care for them but also balance it out with just enough detachment so that they don't get burned out when patients are too difficult or impossible to care for completely. Throw in hospital politics, changes in staff, and a family to the mix and you'll have a good idea just how complicated working in this field can become, and in Weekends at Bellevue you'll see how the author deals with and overcomes these obstacles.(less)

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Apr 14, 2013 John Kroll rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, psychology, science

The book feels stretched out, padded with ruminations, yet also, somehow, too lacking in detail. It is much too skimpy on the science to match the case history books of the Oliver Sacks genre. Too sparse in details on her personal life to be a true memoir. She doesn't demonstrate the descriptive skills necessary to make us really understand her work environment.

She baldly trashes the reputation of another doctor, an act of spite not at all ameliorated by the occasional consideration of possible...more

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title link	preview: Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6478646-weekends-at-bellevue?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320462039l/6478646.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6478646-weekends-at-bellevue?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R. by Julie Holland[/url]

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