Readings for the Psychiatry Clerkship

You are expected to read, especially about specific patients under your care. The psychiatry and human behavior textbook assigned in the Nervous System & Human Behavior Course is the recommended text for the clerkship. This is Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry, 9th edition. Alternately, if you have already purchased the Review of General Psychiatry (Lange series) edited by Howard Goldman, this will suffice, given you have the 5th edition or later, which include the DSM-IV criteria. Now, there has been a revision of the DSM-IV, which is the DSM-IV TR (Text Revision) 4th edition (2000). It is a terrific resource book, but does not provide the background information for a clerkship, as it lacks neurobiological background material or treatment information.

Three good study guides are the following:

  1. Hilty DM, Hales RE, Yudofsky SC. Study Guide to Essentials of Clinical Psychiatry (based on the Am Psych Press Textbook of Psychiatry, 3rd Edition). Washington DC. Am Psych Press, Inc., 1999.

  2. Kaplan HI, Sadock, BJ. Study Guide and Self Examination Review, 7th Edition (for Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry) Baltimore. Williams & Wilkins, 2003.

  3. Fadem B. Review Series: Behavioral Science, 3rd Edition, Baltimore MD, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2000.