August 17th,2010
If you are taking your Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Oral Boards, then you need to recognize tics. And I have to share a concern I have regarding the performance of some of last year’s participants at the 2009 CAP Oral Board Exam Prep Course. One of our adolescent patients who came to the course to be interviewed by the course participants had a motor tic – and no one caught it! There were about 20 psychiatrists in the room a the time and no one caught the fact that this boy had a motor tic.
That is not good. Missing a tic disorder on the child adolescent pychiatry oral boards is as serious as missing Tardive Dyskinesia on the general psychiatry oral boards. Here is some important information on how to not to miss tics on your exam.
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August 16th,2010
When you begin a psychiatric interview on the psychiatry oral board exam, your goal for the first minutes of the interview is to FACILITATE the patient’s description and elaboration of his/her psychiatric and life problems. The specific objectives are four.
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July 20th,2010
Today’s post is based on a fine case summary sent in by one of our readers who shares his story for the benefit of psychiatry oral board candidates. Good news – he passed! See what lesson there are here for you.
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July 7th,2010
After you take your psychiatry oral boards, you are faced with a period in which you have only your own thoughts about your performance to fall back on. And for most psychiatrists those thoughts are not positive, usually focused on all the performance shortcomings. You may pass or you may fail, but you won’t know for 2-3 weeks. And it is these weeks of waiting I wanted to talk to you about today.
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June 28th,2010
As you know, I observe and assess several hundred psychiatric treatment plans each year as I am mock-examining psychiatrists preparing for their Psychiatry and their Child Adolescent Psychiatry oral boards. There is a small, simple concept to keep in mind during your presentation of the treatment plan that can help you avoid this common shortcoming.
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January 28th,2010
One important area of inadequate psychiatry oral board performance is on the treatment plan presentation. Here is the approach I recommend you take if you want to shine.
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January 8th,2010
I just got back from having dinner with my friend and Beat The Boards! faculty member, Dr. Dheeraj Raina. In the course of our conversation we touched upon our favorite funny psychiatric interview miscommunications. The first is Dheeraj’s example, the second is mine.
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December 28th,2009
A certain percentage of patients, both the ones you see clinically and the ones you interview on the Psychiatry Oral Board Exam put the psychiatrist through what I call “The Test.” Here is how it works and how you should handle it.
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December 22nd,2009
Today, I present an email I received from one of our Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Oral Board Exam Prep Course Participants. Since there is so much detail, it is presented anonymously.
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December 11th,2009
One of my constant messages to Psychiatry Oral Board candidates is not to give up even if you make a mistake. The danger is that a mistake that could have been discounted by the examiner becomes a catostrophic event in the candidate’s mind, leading to a complete performance meltdown – a self fulfilling disaster. Here’s a message from a psychiatrist who made mistakes on his Psychiatry Part 2 Exam and still passed.
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