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.
CAP Board Exam Feedback
Hello Jack, I want to personally thank you for all the help you gave me during the Child and Adolescent part 2 course in Chicago in Oct 2009. I just received my results- I passed!
I think the information and the hands on training and feedback that we received from the course was excellent as I have stated in my feed back of the course previously as well.
During the orals I had a psychotic patient who was hearing voices- she was cooperative but seem totally distracted towards the end of the interview- so I stopped and asked her about it and she was able to tell me that she was having AH- so I asked her whether to give a break but she took a couple of seconds and was able to get back on track.
She had been given for adoption to her grand mother- so she had some abandonement issues as well. She had symptoms suggestive of MDD so I went ahead with schizoaffective DO as the working diagnosis but discussed other differentials such as MDD with psychosis, schizophrenis, substance induced psychosis, etc.
Pt also had used substances (cannabis)- so one of the examiners asked what else would be included – after a short struggle I was able to realize they are questioning about delirium since they asked what labs to do in the acute stage. So I mentioned electrolytes, UDS CBC,etc.They asked about psychopharm management as pt was maintained in in pt on Seroquel 50 mg qhs- I said that I willincrease it to 100 and add additional PRN for command hallucinations, agitation. The examiners were interested in the social management as well since the pt had not received psychiatric care for a long time.
I think the trickiest part during the interview was having that balance as you always told us between gathering information and maintaing the rapport. Observing pt’s body language and responding to it and giving respect to the pt I felt went a long way. Also I feel it is important to keep an open mind about differentials and show you are thinking of psychiatric,neurological as well as medical reasons.
I think you are doing a great service to all candidates especially for the orals as the hands on training that you do really helps. Also I met another candidate during the course and she and I continued to present and practice cases until the exam (though we were in diferent states) and this helped tremendously as well.
Thank you again Jack- and happy holidays!
Today’s Quote
Since this is the time of year many of us are making resolutions, I thought this quote is appropriate. It puts resolution-making into proper context.
“I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.” Og Mandino
Take care and Happy Studies ….
Jack Krasuski, MD
877-225-8384
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