The Coeval Blog

Down On The Funny Farm

One of the most pleasant years of my residency in the 1950’s was spent in Camarillo, California, in a mental institution. We residents at Hollywood Presbyterian needed training in women’s surgery, thus I found myself in a madhouse, doing just that.

I must say I was somewhat intimidated by the thought of spending the next year taking care of crazy ladies. I was a gynecologist, not a psychiatrist. My only experience with mentally ill patients had been earlier in medical school at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington D.C. At that time, it was not only the largest mental institution in the world but the wildest—Bedlam, USA. That was the extent of my psychiatric knowledge. No doubt they had showed us their most bizarre cases, but as a result, my memory of the experience rivaled movies like “The Three Faces Of Eve” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

When I entered my ward for the first time, I was overwhelmed. The dayroom was clean, open and spacious and even smelled freshly scrubbed. There were large comfortable sofas and chairs, a television set with patients clustered around it. One thing was a bit novel, however. There were special structures around the TV set to protect it from the patients. I later learned that some patients would try to pick fights with the characters on television.

As I looked around me, I saw women sitting about in groups, talking quietly. Some were chatting with the nurses. It was very civilized, much like the wards at Los Angeles County Hospital and not the snake pit like I’d been lead to expect by the movies and my own early experiences. As I overcame my concerns, I soon discovered that mentally ill patients are not deranged all the time; most of the time, they are much like the rest of us. It’s just that upon occasion, they flip out.

Some were very bright, even brilliant; some were extremely creative. And most were friendly and responded warmly to kindness and understanding—one of my most loving patients was a recovering mass murderess. She had come to understand that the voices in her head, giving her orders, were not real.

I had three basic duties at the institution: Examine all new females admitted, arrange to examine as many of the 3,000 females in the outer wards as I possibly could, and perform surgery on those who needed it. On my ward, I kept about 70 patients who were either pregnant or pre-and-post-op surgical patients. My boss, Dr. Chuck Montague, would come in twice a week and we would do surgery. The rest of the time I was on my own.

Three mornings a week I would gather six of my nurses, all our equipment, and head for one of the outer wards. Each ward contained about 70 female patients plus their nursing staff. When we arrived, the staff nurses would have the patients in their beds, all lined up and ready for their examinations. I then went from one patient to the next, doing pap smears, breast and pelvic/rectal exams. During these exams, I had to have nurses hold the patient’s arms and legs, and another nurse at her head so my hands wouldn’t get bitten.

I had to be swift and comprehensive. Even with nurses running interference, the women would only lie still for a few seconds. In three hours, I would examine all 70 of these ladies and be on my way. It was efficient if not compassionate. I learned to move fast, but I didn’t blame them for their reactions. It must have been a bizarre experience for them, too.

Camarillo Hospital was a beautiful place of rolling grass lawns, widely separated white buildings and a gentle ocean breeze blowing across the campus. I visited it recently—it’s now a college —and it’s not nearly as well kept as I remember. I was very disappointed when then Governor Ronald Reagan slashed the mental health budget in California, an act that resulted in the closing of Camarillo and other facilities that housed and treated the mentally ill. The patients at Camarillo were well taken care of, protected and happy. Then they became the first generation of the homeless, wandering the streets of Santa Monica and Los Angeles.

Our leaders said we just couldn’t afford to keep the hospitals open, but some people were (and are) unable to take care of themselves. It seems strange that the richest nation in the world can’t take proper care of its mentally ill. They didn’t ask to be the way they are and, believe me, there but for the grace of God go a lot of the rest of us.

Once I learned to understand my patients at Camarillo, I loved them. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some trying moments. There was a PX on the grounds where the patients could buy various personal items, and they were taken there in groups. One afternoon, I was walking across the campus when a platoon of patients came marching toward me. Suddenly they all began screaming hysterically. Breaking ranks, they started running in all directions. The nurses were frantic and unable to control them and strangely enough, they seemed mad as hell at me! I was baffled and when I asked what was going on, I was told that the patients were frightened to death of me. Shocked, I asked, “Why me? What did I do?” The head nurse glared at me and retorted, “They think you’re a rapist.”

Despite that blot on my reputation, I learned a lot at Camarillo. I got very good surgical training but more, I learned a lot about life. The patients, even the nutty ones, taught me how to appreciate and respect being sane and alive. We are all valuable, even the crazies among us. But Lincoln was wrong about one thing: All men are not created equal. We may have equal rights but we have different potentials and abilities. Some human beings need custodial care for a time, some forever. Some to protect them, some to protect us from them. But they still deserve to live like human beings.

The above was sent to us by editor/writer Janey Milstead. It is an excerpt from a yet unpublished book by Dr.Boyd Cooper entitled “Between The Stirrups: My 40 Years As A Hollywood Gynocologist.” Janey worked on the book with Dr. Cooper and got his permission to post this chapter on coevalblog.com. Dr. Cooper is the author of the 70’s bestseller, “Sex Without Tears.” His latest book, “Unlikely Hero,” is available at xlibrus.com.