My experience in the Psychiatric ER was informative and critical in my development as a competent and empathetic PA. I enjoyed my interactions with a subset of patients that I had not previously interacted with. Although there were certain scenarios in which I did not feel comfortable, overall I found that I was able to relate to and interact with the patients to develop good rapport with them. I found this rotation to be most interesting because much of my focus was on interpersonal skills. However, I also had the opportunity to improve my understanding of psychiatric diagnoses and medications. While I was familiar with many of the medications, I had trouble remembering the various side effects associated with each of them. During this rotation, I made an effort to discuss the medications with the PAs and Attendings regarding their choice of treatment for different patients and the reasons behind their decisions. I also focused on recognizing signs and symptoms of various diagnoses and attempted to develop differentials in my head throughout my interviews with the patients. One of the areas in which I would like to improve is differentiating between similar presentations and recognizing unique differentiating factors. During my next rotation, I hope to continue to utilize the interpersonal skills I sharpened during this rotation. I also plan to continue to speak with Attendings, PAs and other providers to understand their thought processes when developing treatment regimens and to better understand how to accurately manage patients on my own.