Through the Office Door

on the part of the professional staff to foster the mystique, even to the extent of keeping the administrative and professional staff apart, as far as possible. The office door was always kept closed. Shortly after I started, the psychiatric social worker left and so, through shortage of staff, the office door had to be opened. I had to adopt duties that I knew little about, with very few guide lines. The greatest strain was to appear knowledgeable when much of the psychiatric language was meaningless to me. I was also expected to have a working knowledge of zoology when the clinic was presented with a sickly kitten and a budgerigar. TTie kitten died and the budgie became maladjusted. It squawked continuously in its cage and when released, it would chew all the case papers. It was banished from the office into the waiting room and became a useful distraction for the children. Since then, birds have become a recognised part of the clinic equipment and I have become an expert on their diets.