An adolescent psychiatric unit for difficult medical patients

While the combined psychiatric and medical treatment of patients is highly desirable, such treatment of more complex medical patients in a psychiatric milieu has been difficult to accomplish. This paper describes the creation of and experience with a psychiatric unit for adolescents with both difficult medical and psychiatric problems. Useful aspects of the structure of such a unit are discussed, and case examples are presented.A version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Psychiatric Services for Children, Feb., 1991, Miami, Florida.