USMLE STEP 1: Psychiatry: Malingering and Factitious disorders.

Hey there..! Hello..

 So whenever you come across a clinical vignette in which the patient comes with UNEXPLAINED symptoms or complaints and doesn't seem to have an actual illness, but is either faking it or creating it, the patient is either MALINGERING or has a FACTITIOUS DISORDER.

Is Homosexuality a disease? Is Gay a gender? (Sex, Gender and Sexuality)

We got these questions, many times in our Whatsapp study groups! No, is the answer to both questions. Let's find out why and lets find out much more information about what is Sex, Gender and Sexuality(Sexual Orientation)!

How to Behave like a Good Doctor? (Part 1)

                     Anybody with a hard earned MD/DO or MBBS(MBChB/BM/MBBChir etc all fall here) can be a doctor. But not every doctor is a good doctor. Not every good doctor can present themselves well and behave as a doctor.

Hello awesomites, I’m Jay here, once again with some insights on How behave as a Doctor in a Clinical setting. Today we had a discussion in our Medical History Lecture about this, I’m basing the article on that. This part 1.

1. Attitude

You should have a proper attitude as a doctor. In front of your patient, you should look confident. You should not be

Submissions: Mature defense mechanisms mnemonic

Mature defense mechanisms mnemonic

SMASH
Suppression
Mature defenses
Altruism
Sublimation
Humor

This mnemonic was submitted by mist amidst

Making Referrals - Bio Medical Ethics

Hey awesomites, I'm Jay, and I'm your new Medicowesome contributor! yayy!! :) And today we are going to talk about Referrals. This is another important ethical responsibility of a physician.

A physician’s Central responsibility is WELFARE OF THE PATIENT, and that means, Physician should work for the best interest of the patient not him/herself.

Referral simply means that, when we reach the boundaries of our competence, we should hand our patient to a more competent physician. Keeping a patient with ourselves to hide our incompetency or to earn more money is a huge NO-NO!!!

We shouldn’t be ashamed to ask for help from our colleagues, and we shouldn’t be continuing to treat a patient, if we cannot give him/her a fruitful therapy as our boundary of competency has reached. That’s when we should write a LETTER OF REFFERAL to a Consultant(BritE)/Attending(AmE) Physician or to another colleague with a broader knowledge or idea of the subject.

Submissions: Bio medical ethics

Bio Medical Ethics - by Jay ™

Today’s blog post is about Bio Medical ethics or Ethics of Medical care that a health care practitioner has to adhere to.

Medical ethics started off as Hippocratic Oath made in 460~ BC in the Book called Corpuz Hippocratum.

“Do No Harm” is the Primary Ethical concern of Medical Ethics. 

Study group discussion: Serial interval and communicable period

What is the difference bw serial interval and communicable period?

Communicable period is the one in which the disease is transmitted from one case to another. (Also known as infectivity.)
The patient might have the disease but may not be infectious because of latent phase.

Serial interval is the time period in which the disease manifests from one case to another.

It's different from communicable period because the disease doesn't manifest immediately, so the case might present to you late.

Serial interval = Latent period + communicable period (Roughly)

Study group discussion: How and when do children understand the concept of death

A six year old boy with neuroblastoma has a recurrence of the tumor despite aggressive treatment. The doctor discusses the patient prognosis with his parents and recommends palliative care. Parents ask how they should tell son the prognosis and possible death. Doctor advises parents to be honest and follow patients lead. Patient most likely has which understanding of death?

1- Being asleep
2- Being final
3- Being in a long journey
4- Being temporarily separated from parents
5- No understanding of death.

3 year olds think it's temporary separation. They keep asking whether their pets will come back.

At 6 years of age the child begins to understand that death is final and fears that his or her parents will die and leave.

It is not until about age 9, however, that the child understands that he or she also can die.

Since the child was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, he will be able to understand that death is final, but will be unable to understand his possibility of death.

The answer is 2. Death is final.

Additional info about normal child development discussed by an awesomite mother:

My 6 year old doesn't understand death much. 8 year old gets it.

6 year old knows, in the abstract, what death is, because we've had a dog die. But he never showed true grief in the understanding of it, asked where you go when one does, etc.

My daughter is 8.5 and is now questioning the afterlife. She's asking questions regarding what happens, really wanting to know, etc.

Hope that helps! 

The only atypical antipsychotic with extrapyramidal symptoms mnemonic

Risperidone won't let you rest.

Somatoform disorders mnemonic

Hey everyone!

We'll be learning some psychiatry and some random memory aids I made today =P

Berksonian bias, Pygmalion effect and Hawthorne effect mnemonic

Hey everyone!
Because the names are so hard to remember, I make silly associations out of them and I hope it helps you all too =)

Berksonian bias: Selection bias that arises from evaluating data on biased patients and hospital records only.

When it comes to Berksonian bias I think of Preston Berke from Grey's anatomy and I know that it's associated with the hospital and patients!

Pygmalion effect: The observer-expectancy effect is a form of reactivity in which a researcher's cognitive bias causes them to unconsciously influence the participants of an experiment.

Researchers are pigs. They think their research is always right. Pygmalion effect! xD

Hawthorne effect: When behavior of the subjects of the study change because they know they're being observed.

Haww I am being studied. Hawthorne effect!

That's all!

Pray that I do well in my exams.

-IkaN

This is awesome. A Tumblr post with gifs and tables. Yaay!

Defense mechanisms with images

I was learning defense mechanisms and I found really good illustrations, pictures and comics on them.
I thought of putting them all together in one place so everyone else can see and revise them faster! I also added some side notes here and there.

How I remember duration of brief psychotic disorder, schizophreniform & schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is diagnosed if the symptoms persist for 6 months or more.

Brief psychotic disorder is when the duration of symptoms is less than one month.

If the symptoms have persisted for at least one month and last less than 6 months of onset, the diagnosis of schizophreniform disorder is made.