With our current topic on geriatric psychology, it only seems fitting that we now shine the spotlight on our local geriatric psychologists! This month, we had the pleasure of interviewing Ms Lim Si Huan, a Senior Clinical Psychologist in the Department of Geriatric Psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health.
Credits: Ms Lim Si Huan
Ms Lim started practicing in 2012 with experiences in the general psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry, and physical rehabilitation settings. She is currently with the Aged Psychiatry Community Assessment and Treatment Service (APCATS). APCATS is a community-oriented psychogeriatric outreach service that provides assessment and treatments for homebound or frail elderly with mental health conditions, as well as training and consultation for community eldercare agencies and primary care practitioners. Her interest lies in incorporating person-centered care principles in the care of elderly with mental health conditions, especially those with dementia.
How does one become a geriatric psychologist in Singapore? What are the career options? What is it like working in IMH? In this informative interview, Ms Lim shares her personal stories, and answers several burning questions that prospective psychologists may have. Through this, we hope you – our readers and aspiring (geriatric) psychologists – gain more in-psychs (geddit?) into the career field and your personal goals, and thus make well-informed decisions in the future!
What are your main responsibilities and a typical day on the job for you?
The Aged Psychiatry Community Assessment and Treatment Service (APCATS) is a psychogeriatric outreach team whereby we serve elderly above 65 years-old with mental health conditions and are too frail to visit the clinics. As such, we ‘bring the clinic’ to them, as well as support our community partners. I am a clinical psychologist in a multi-disciplinary team consisting of psychiatrists, psychogeriatric nurses, an occupational therapist, and medical social workers. I have two main responsibilities – clinical and training. For the clinical component, I conduct home visits and provide therapy and assessment at the clients’ homes. For the training component, I plan and conduct case discussions and trainings in psychogeriatric and dementia care topics for our community partners that include nursing homes and a variety of eldercare agencies.
Credits: Institute of Mental Health
What are the most fulfilling and challenging parts of your job?
The most challenging part of my job is often care co-ordination; to help the client, I have to work with multiple people, who have different agendas, opinions, and perspectives. The challenge is to gel these differences to achieve the greater good for my clients. It is also the most fulfilling part of my job when I don’t just see the change for the better for my clients but the growth of the entire system.
What is the most memorable work experience you have had?
One memorable experience was when my client with dementia actually recognized and eventually (somehow) remembered me from the videos I created for her simulated presence therapy*! She would often ask her daughters ‘when is the doctor coming to visit me’. When her daughters told her I was visiting, that was the day she sat up from lying on her bed most of the time, supervised her daughters to fry her signature beehoon dish, so she could host me with it. She also introduced me to eating durian with rice as durian was her favorite fruit.
[*Simulated presence therapy involves video recordings that simulate conversations surrounding topics of interest with someone, usually familiar people (Woods & Ashley, 1995).]
Of all the subfields of psychology, why did you choose geriatric psychology?
My close relationships I had with my grandparents set the foundation for my interest in geriatric psychology. I then had a very positive internship experience at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital that firmed up my decision. The elderly I worked with were very warm and genuine. They taught me the fundamentals of being a therapist – to be genuine as a person. And that is something I hope to be reminded of all the time.
What was your journey through the psychological field like?
Educational Path: I obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the Nanyang Technological University and a Master of Clinical Psychology from the National University of Singapore.
Volunteering/Work Experiences: I was a research assistant through my undergraduate years, as well as a volunteer at Fei Yue Family Service Centre (FSC) through my junior college and undergraduate years. Research helped me develop analytical and critical thinking skills while being a volunteer at a FSC helped me gain perspectives of the gaps and difficulties on the ground. In combination, I am able to critically dissect the gaps, suggest interventions that are realistic to the ground, and analytically review the outcomes.
What is the career progression like for a geriatric psychologist?
There are clinical, education, and research pathways in this field.
1. Clinical path would include client related work such as maintaining a clinical workload, initiating, running, and evaluating services.
2. Education path would include teaching, supervising juniors and students, or providing consultations to community partners.
3. Research path would include conducting and publishing research related to our work.
I am privileged to be at a place that I am given equal opportunities in all three areas. I hope that I will be able to continue seeing clients, conduct practice-based research, and use my research to educate those who care for our elderly clients.
What can an aspiring geriatric psychologist expect from applying to IMH?
Geriatric Psychiatry is just one department out of many in the Institute of Mental Health. I started as a junior clinical psychologist in the main Psychology department. In the main Psychology department, I attended to the general psychiatry population (adults from 18 years old onwards, including the geriatric population). It was only when I joined APCATS that I could dedicate 100% of my work to the geriatric population.
Being a big hospital with many departments, experienced clinicians, and various client profiles, learning opportunities are plenty and available to anyone who is proactive and willing to learn.
What is the best advice you can offer to aspiring geriatric psychologists now?
Caregivers matter and don’t forget your mother tongue/dialects (at least for this current generation of elderly).
Caregivers do not just apply to children of the elderly but to everyone who is involved in the care of an elderly. It could be a nursing home staff, community partner, a domestic helper, a child, or even a spouse. They are important in helping to support our elderly clients; their well-being has a direct impact on our elderly clients’ well-being.
I would recommend for people to interact with elderly from all places, to learn their cultures, beliefs, values, and languages.
How do you think your job will change over the next 10 years? By then, what changes do you wish to see in the field?
My job could go either way – become less or more challenging over the next 10 years. Accessibility to information is a double-edged sword. Nowadays, people could easily obtain information about mental health from the internet or social media. In my job, we hope to impart knowledge about mental health to people, so that they could seek appropriate help and services when needed. With the increased accessibility to information, early detection and interventions could be possible and I could possibly encounter fewer chronic or severe cases. On the other hand, people could also misuse the information against others – by labeling unnecessarily, and ironically create greater stigmatization.
I wish that, regardless of within or beyond the field, people could just see beyond labels and attempt to form genuine relationships with one another, that would eventually benefit our clients.
If you could rewind time, would you choose the same professional path?
I would still choose the same professional path. People think that clinical psychologists are ‘healers’ or ‘helpers’. Yet, I feel that through a helping profession, I grew and develop personally, and perhaps, gained more than I gave to my clients.
Written by Ng Jia Ying. Jia Ying is a 3rd year undergraduate from SMU, pursuing Psychology and Marketing. A believer of lifelong learning, she aims to constantly educate herself and others around her on the importance of mental health and to reduce society’s stigmatization of mental illnesses.
References
Woods, P., & Ashley, J. (1995). Simulated presence therapy: Using selected memories to manage problem behaviors in Alzheimer's disease patients. Geriatric Nursing, 16(1), 9-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0197-4572(05)80072-2
Comments
Post a Comment