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Notes -
Review books? Do you mean like targeted USMLE prep books and their equivalent?
Never heard of any for the MRCPsych, and I just looked on Google with no luck. There are some for other specialties, I can see results for the MRCP (no pancreas involved, usually), but apparently psychiatry residents get the shaft.
What most people do is sign up to a repository of notes and MCQs. I opted for one known as SPMM. In a way, the notes are a book, one that condenses a ton of scattered bullshit into something the mere human mind can grasp. Unfortunately, the overall quality leaves something to be desired, the study material I had for prior exams was better (clarity, content, presentation), but the more niche the exam the fewer people willing to spend money I guess.
Honesty, I'm done with like 75% of the coaching material, with just about a month to go. The problem is that psychiatry, when flattened into a series of bullet points for an exam, becomes uniquely soul-crushing.
In contrast, the other exams I've discussed actually require a bit of critical thinking. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I do now.
I just find it hard to make all that information stick when it's so boring, and I do not relish the necessary revision ahead. Spaced repetition sounds great until you're actually doing it.
I attempted to channel my procrastination into going through some of the Royal College's suggested reading, and as you can see, I'm regretting it. The notes make them mostly redundant anyway. ChatGPT in combination makes them entirely so.
I cast F60.2
Wait, that's deprecated. Uh.. 6D10.1? Plus 6D11.3? For fuck's sake, in the most recent exams, they expect us to memorize ICD-11 and DSM-5 criteria, and the changes from ICD-10. When we still use 10 for all of our actual work and coding, with no plan to change before the current crop of consultants die of old age. And we don't even use the DSM, at least where I can see it. Is it there in our syllabus solely so we don't feel too embarrassed to attend American conferences? God knows.
You can see why this gives me a headache, though I will admit that classification systems are useful.
What about Anki decks for your boards?
Yeah F codes are a little silly at times cough cough struck by orca but automated tools help make them less of a pain in the ass.
The DSM is great though for kludging a million random phenomena into something that can be actually communicated between humans.
I haven't run into an any Anki decks specifically designed for this till date. I've made a few of my own, and I intend to go through them eventually.
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