Latifa Patel, University of Liverpool

I award this book a BUYER RATING OF 4/5. Third year… got to my Psychiatry rotation and I just wanted to crawl into a corner and hide. I had no idea what anyone was talking about and the jargon…. Don’t mention the jargon. Psychiatry is complicated enough (diseases with no real known aetiology and no real known 100% successful treatment), so why further complicate it with words like logoclonia and Binswanger’s Disease? Shortly after the rotation started I ran and bought this book. I browsed over a few and this was the most colourful one (though on closer inspection you will find it only has one colour). It is really easy on the eyes and very simple to understand. There are some great tables and it has lots and lots of summary boxes. But my favourite has to be the EMQ, MCQ and SAQ section at the book. And I would probably by the book for this chapter alone. There is a downside however although there is a lot of detail regarding each disease the disease is split into two; Patient presentation and your reaction… I’m not entirely keen on this approach as I end flicking to and fro a fair bit. Enjoy, Latifa (“,)

Posted 9th Mar 2009