Psychiatry
Clinical Skills for OSCEs
Dr. Neel Burton approaches the complex ethical and philosophical issues that are inherent to the practice of psychiatry. Psychiatry is a comprehensive textbook that draws upon material in the arts and humanities to provide a fresh and innovative cultural approach designed for medical students and health care professionals.
Fresh, in writing a book that is clear and concise while comprehensive and detailed, Neel Burton emphasizes important areas of a science that address the very essence of what it is to be human. Innovative, by making psychiatry come alive through detailed case studies and the use of numerous examples from the worlds of art, film and literature to emphasize the biopsychosocial model that is especially pertinent to this branch of medicine.
Professor John Cox, Secretary General of the World Psychiatric Association in Geneva, writes in the foreword to Psychiatry that the values-based practice emphasized in this book should in future form an important part of medical undergraduate training, where doctors require an "understanding of their own psychological, cultural, and spiritual assumptions in order to practice in a multicultural society."
For Neel Burton, the field of psychiatry comes alive in facing up to the "empirical and conceptual challenges that hinder its progress and leave it exposed to criticism". Psychiatry considers the historical context of the long-standing differences between the humoral and spiritual approaches to mental illness, a debate originally emanating from the ancient Greek words psyche and iatreia, or "healing of the soul," It is indeed this spiritual, and often religious, dimension to the field that makes it different from other medical specialties.
Addressing the need to make medical and treatment information accessible to people suffering from the debilitating illness, Living with Schizophrenia offers sufferers guidance towards understanding the illness and the treatments available to them. This book bridges the gap between medical literature and the often inconsistent and unreliable information available to the public. It enables sufferers and their carers to gain more control over their lives by dispelling misperceptions and providing useful information and advice.
Schizophrenia is an illness that affects millions of people who experience symptoms ranging from acute paranoia to visual and auditory hallucinations. It often leaves the sufferers withdrawn, and incomprehensible or frightening to others. While the illness is feared, sufferers are at most risk of harming themselves rather than others. Treatments with current medicine and therapy can have a high rate of success. As a result, it is important to provide patients with practical information about the symptoms and treatments, to discuss it openly, and to assist them on their path to recovery.
Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are structured as real-time exercises during which the examiners ask questions that require immediate responses. As such, preparations for these examinations involve considerable rehearsal and drills in order that the answers are readily available when they are needed. Clinical Skills for OSCEs uses a systems-based approach to cover all of the clinical skills that are likely to be tested, including a total of 110 scenarios which involve the practical understanding of history taking, examination, and medical procedures.
Clinical Skills for OSCEs is a comprehensive study guide to prepare for the examinations, with scenarios contributed by current medical students and recent graduates. Each of the scenarios covered in this book contains an introductory statement of the task for that station, followed by a brief overview with tips, and a step-by-step guide of how to carry out the station. Instead of attempting to teach candidates medicine or surgery, this guide gathers and organises a large amount of information and presents it in a structured and memorable fashion.
Candidates for the examinations benefit from the vast amount of information compiled in a single resource guide easy to read and to the point, together with valuable boxes of additional background information relating to each testing station. From cranial exams and hearing tests to psychiatric assessments and basic life support, all of the necessary proficiencies are detailed. Since the exams require demonstrable skills, Clinical Skills for OSCE gives step-by-step profiles of the capabilities needed for success.
