Psychward

After eight years as head of a big-city emergency room, Seager ( Breathe, Little Boy, Breathe ) switched his speciality to psychiatry and now is completing a residency at a Los Angeles ghetto hospital. The book in hand is an account of his year as an intern. A gifted writer, Seager conveys wth power and sensitivity the tragic, hair-raising, sometimes hilarious goings-on within ``The Bin,'' portraying with sure strokes its staff members and patients--a murderous schizophrenic, a man who believed he was (and indeed seemed to be) pregnant and children hallucinating from cocaine that had been forced on them by sexually abusive adults. In reaching toward ``the core of sanity'' which he maintains is buried in all mental patients, the author unashamedly became involved emotionally, and remains indignant at the outside world's hostility--or, at best indifference--to the plight of these ``modern lepers'' who now swell the ranks of the homeless. (Apr.)