Psy Med – Mastering Psychiatry BY CYRUS SH HO, MELVYN WB ZHANG, HWANG KAI WEN, ROGER CM HO

Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental and emotional disorders. Psychiatry offers medical students a unique experience because psychiatric diagnosis is established by clinical interview but not based on a laboratory test or an X-ray. Medical students may need time to adjust to this specialty because it involves treatment modality such as psychotherapy or electroconvulsive therapy which are not found in other medical or surgical disciplines.

The duration of undergraduate posting in psychiatry is 6 weeks and it poses a challenge for medical students to master psychiatric knowledge and skills in a short period of time. The old ideology was to study a large psychiatric textbook. Medical students often realise that much time has elapsed without consolidating their knowledge prior to the examination, leading to panic attacks. Some students study textbooks published in the UK and US but these books may contain treatment recommendations which are not relevant to the Singapore context. We believe that this new book, Mastering Psychiatry: A core Textbook for Undergraduates will be one of the most accessible, creative and practical books in undergraduate psychiatry to bridge the gaps of revision and application of knowledge in the examinations and future practice. The skillful organisation comes through on every page and candidates can revise psychiatry in an efficient manner.

The chapters in this book are based on the common syllabus of most medical schools worldwide. We also incorporate the guidelines from the Ministry of Health (Singapore) and the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) (United Kingdom). The materials of this book are based on the undergraduate course taught and the wealth of clinical experience gathered by RH at the National University Hospital. Whenever possible, the concepts are supplemented with diagrams and sample exam questions, where the readers may gain a deeper insight, so whilst the materials are easily absorbable, they also provide a stepping stone to the OSCE examination. We believe that the preparation for OSCE is based on clinical videos and a DVD is provided to help candidates to prepare for the OSCE. Furthermore, the OSCE grid helps to consolidate knowledge in a practical and memorisable manner. This book also contains important information required for the theory papers. We hope that we have produced an affordable book that lives up to the high expectations from the readers and yet to revise psychiatry in an enjoyable and informative way.

We have striven to make Mastering Psychiatry: A core textbook for undergraduates an interesting, enjoyable and useful. We would welcome constructive criticism and comments (email to masteringpsychiatry@gmail.com) directed at making improvements to future editions. We believe that readers putting effort into learning psychiatry through this book would be in a strong position to impress the examiners and their colleagues.

To people with mental illnesses, their families and mental health workers
who battle with mental illnesses and devote their lives to improve the quality of psychiatric care.

To medical students
who strive for excellence and determine to pursue a medical career with tireless effort.

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