Sixty high-yield psychiatry cases help you sharpen your diagnostic and problem-solving skills
You need exposure to high-yield cases to excel on the psychiatry clerkship and the shelf-exam. "Case Files: Psychiatry" presents sixty real-life cases that illustrate essential concepts. Each case includes complete discussion, clinical pearls, references, definitions of key terms, and USMLE-style review questions with detailed explanations of the correct answers. With this system, you'll learn in the context of real patients, rather than merely memorize facts.
This book follows the standard Case Files format, which I won't review here. Content-wise, I found it was a good mix of clinical problems - it covers all the major DSM diagnoses and many of the less common ones. It also covers toxicology (e.g. for drugs of abuse or prescription overdose). My rotation was in general psychiatry, so I was exposed to many of the common reasons for psych admission through that, but this book helped cover the gaps left from my rotation. As I read it I was concerned that the information was not in-depth enough for exam prep, but in retrospect it was adequate when combined with other resources (e.g. Lange Q&A). Overall, I found it more user-friendly and more well-written than other iterations in the Case File series. Overall, a good book from a good series of test prep books.
I've read a handful of Case Files books so far in 3rd year and this one is definitely my favorite. Good mix of cases and depth wise I think it was perfect for the shelf. Kind of a less formal tone for my money too than some of the other, more buttoned-up books in the series.