Psych Shelf

[ilovepath]

I heard this was the hardest shelf.
Harder than surgery, medicine etc.
What are the ambiguous questions?
Where are the areas they try to trip us up?
It's such a finite amt of material yet they make it so hard--did anyone find this shelf easy?

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[chocomorsel]

I heard this was the hardest shelf.
Harder than surgery, medicine etc.
What are the ambiguous questions?
Where are the areas they try to trip us up?
It's such a finite amt of material yet they make it so hard--did anyone find this shelf easy?

I sure as hell didn't think it was harder than medicine. Know your drugs, and their side effects and how to treat those side effects. I'm sure as in every shelf there are ambigous questions that you just cannot predict. Know dsmiv and how stuff is diagnosed. Honestly, it's not that bad.

 

[Bitsy3221]

Agree with chocomorsel. Know your drugs (esp. side effects) and basic diagnoses. Review personality disorders--some can look the same. Also know a bit about ETOH/substance abuse if I remember correctly. Ambiguous questions? Maybe differentiating similar diagnoses, like somatiform disorders, perhaps?

I absolutely did not think this was the hardest shelf exam.

I think the most valuable advice I can offer is to stop talking to your classmates (and in that vein, probably anonymous posters on the web )--they will either stress you out, as they already appear to have succeeded at, or will give you a false sense of security.

Good luck!

 

[ilovepath]

glad to hear not too many ppl had problems. if anyone else has suggestions, please post. the majority of classmates say this one is a time cruncher
thnx

 

[dentate_gyrus]

I had read to "study" the DSMIV and other hooey like that. Totally not applicable.
Know the basic characteristics of the common diseases, then know how to tell acute stress disorder from PTSD, schizophreniform from schizophrenia and brief delusional or brief psychotic disorder.
Probably more important to discern a delusion from a hallucination, know when someone needs involuntary admission.
Very important were drug reactions and non-psych causes of mental wierdness were common (thyroid, wernicke's, cushing's, pheo, Huntingtin's, TLE, CJD was there I believe).
When to get an MRI vs CT vs EEG vs LP. I'm not sure if the LP was on there actually.
Know how to treat and identify benzo vs. etoh w/d.
Know illicit drug intoxications.
Know the PD's.
Know the difference between conduct and ASPD, Bipolar I/II.
Some ethics Q's I most likely got wrong.
Child psych d/o were key (~10-15 Q's), free points for pervasive, Rett's, Autism, conduct, bulimia and anorexia were definitely there, know the PEx and labs for the eating d/o's THEY ARE COUNTERINTUITIVE and cannot be "figured out" (by me) from 1st principles.
And last but certainly not least conversion d/o vs malingering.

 

[Heavenly2008]

I heard the same thing about the psych shelf. Does anyone know what the best source of questions are for the psych shelf? What resources should I be using in addition to FA Psych? Thanks

 

[Anka]

I had a little green pocket book (literally 100 pages, current clinical strategies) which had the DSM critera for the major diseases, as well as a little section on Pharm.

http://www.amazon.com/Psychiatry-20...f=sr_1_29/103-1010518-7065432?ie=UTF8&s=books

That, Casefiles, and Pretest was all I used, and it was far from the hardest shelf.

Anka

 

[purplefish]

I agree with Anka, the green book is great- especially the chapter on dementia and delirium. I also liked First Aid for pscyh (its also super short)

 

[Heavenly2008]

Thanks very much to Anka and purplefish

 

[VincentAdultman]

I heard this was the hardest shelf.
Harder than surgery, medicine etc.
What are the ambiguous questions?
Where are the areas they try to trip us up?
It's such a finite amt of material yet they make it so hard--did anyone find this shelf easy?

On my shelf they definitely tried to confuse medical and psychiatric dx's.

But medicine and surg shelves were much harder.

 

[DOctorJay]

that little green book is free in PDF format and can be loaded to your Palm/or PPC there's a link in the psych forum for it

you can also get the corresponding book for psych drugs in the same post.

J

 

[Iron123]

where's the link for the free pdf file of that little green book? i can't find it