Review:
Lecture Notes: Psychiatry is now in its 9 th edition and is part of the Lecture Notes series. The book comprises two sections, the first of which is psychiatric assessment and the second section focuses on the common psychiatric problems and their management.
I’m currently on my psychiatry placement and therefore feel well qualified to comment on psychiatry texts. This book is probably my favourite of the publications I’ve tried thus far because (for the most part) it cuts through the rubbish and tells you just what you’ll need to know as a GP or A&E doctor dealing with acute and chronic psychiatric patients. The information is easy to find and that means all those small group sessions (part of year 4’s dreaded PPP course) are over relatively quickly – something you will definitely appreciate.
As with all of the notes-style psychiatry books that I have, this book does lack depth on some of the less-common diagnoses, this is ironic because some of the initial chapters waste a lot of space telling you things about teamwork and how homeless people are difficult to follow-up etc. Unfortunately some of these things are still on the syllabus at Leeds and so you won’t be able to rely on this one book alone.
In summary, it is probably worth getting a book for psychiatry because it’s a bit alien compared with the other specialties and has a high weighting of questions in the exam. This is the best of a mediocre bunch but there’s still scope for someone to write a better guide to psychiatry.
Reviewed By: Ian Anderson (10.05.2006)
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