Do Not Pass Go

This morning, I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Young at her clinic at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women.  I'd never been to a jail before, and it isn't really at all like what I had imagined.  It's a strange setup that's almost like a commune or a self-sufficient town: the inmates make their own clothing in the tailoring shop, attend classes that offer them degrees in fields like heating/cooling and cosmetology, and participate in Pen Pals, a dog training program that makes shelter dogs more desirable for adoption.  Some Virginian prisons even have gardens, farms, and greenhouses.  Who knew?

Like most Americans, I went in imagining the worst about prison healthcare, but I found the opposite to be true.  The no-show rate in clinic is very low, because let's be honest, what more important things do the inmates have to do?  Compliance is excellent, because they have to go to the pill line to retrieve their medications at the appropriate time.  The patients all have excellent records, because, well, they're in prison.

Being a physician in a prison seems to be exciting as well.  I got to hear stories from the doctors about resuscitating patients who had tried to strangulate themselves and finding patients after they had given birth in their own beds.  The most incredible story was about an inmate who held her liquid methadone in her mouth, walked back to her building, spit it out into a cup, and sold it to another inmate, who then overdosed, vomited, aspirated, and went into respiratory arrest.  Um... wow.

EDIT: Matt has pointed out to me that although the term "jail" is frequently used synonymously with the term "prison," in the American penal system they actually mean two different things.  According to Wikipedia, jails are county or city administrated institutions which house both inmates awaiting trial on the local level and convicted misdemeanants serving a term of one year or less, while prisons are state or Federal facilities housing those awaiting trial on the state or Federal level and convicted felons serving a term of more than one year; thus, FCCW is a prison and not a jail.  My apologies.