psychiatry boards
Clinical teaching and practical ideas for your next study session.
FND and Workers’ Compensation: Incentive Is Not Intent
A workers’ compensation claim may make an external incentive relevant, but it does not prove intentional symptom production. Learn how to weigh positive FND findings, normal tests, and evidence of intent in board-style diagnosis questions.
Interoceptive Exposure for Panic: Match Each Drill to the Fear
For an interoceptive-exposure SAQ, go beyond naming drills: match each bodily cue to the fear it tests, and avoid promising that habituation proves safety.
Poorly Controlled Diabetes: When Is Depression Due to It?
A high A1C does not settle whether a depressive syndrome is caused by diabetes. Learn how to distinguish a direct medical cause from co-occurring major depression and diabetes distress.
FND Management SAQs: Match Each Treatment to a Target
A strong FND management answer matches rehabilitation and psychological support to the patient’s symptoms and functional needs—without assuming a cause, a comorbidity, or a one-size-fits-all treatment.
PTSD vs Adjustment Disorder: Persistence Is Not the Divider
Intrusive memories and a sense that danger continues do not by themselves separate PTSD from adjustment disorder. Learn how trauma exposure, symptom pattern, timing, and impairment guide the distinction.
Oxybutynin and Delirium: Linking Muscarinic Blockade to Acetylcholine
A recent oxybutynin prescription points to reduced central cholinergic signaling—the classic delirium hypothesis. For boards, connect receptor blockade to acetylcholine; in practice, treat the timeline as a reason to review medications, not proof of a single cause.
ICD-11 Complex PTSD: The DSO Clusters That Change the Diagnosis
Early trauma and relationship difficulties can raise suspicion for complex PTSD, but they are not the diagnosis. Learn how to assess the PTSD core, all three DSO domains, and functional impact.
Olanzapine and Insulin Resistance: How Specific Should a Board Answer Be?
A direct-mechanism MCQ can tempt you to state more than the evidence supports. Learn the classic insulin-signaling answer, distinguish a cell-model finding from a small human physiology study, and avoid treating a proposed GLUT4 effect as a universal explanation.
Wisconsin Card Sorting Task: Localize the Pattern, Not the Test
When a psychiatry MCQ pairs working-memory difficulty with perseverative set-shifting, use the task demands to choose dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—and separate that board-level localization from a real-world lesion diagnosis.
Antipsychotic Metabolic Risk on Psychiatry Boards: Read the Endpoint Before You Choose
A broad question about antipsychotic metabolic risk can hide an important ambiguity: the answer changes with the endpoint and duration. Learn how to reason through the pharmacology, identify common traps, and turn one MCQ into durable retrieval practice.
Delirium Superimposed on Mild Neurocognitive Disorder: Three Clues That Change the Diagnosis
Learn how acute onset, impaired attention, and changes in arousal help distinguish delirium superimposed on a preexisting neurocognitive disorder from baseline cognitive decline.
When the World Feels Unreal: PTSD, Dissociation, and Fear Extinction
A trauma survivor with nightmares, cue-triggered panic, memory gaps, nightly alcohol use, and fear of an ex-partner requires more than a quick PTSD label. This case shows how to protect safety, separate overlapping diagnoses, and use fear-extinction principles in trauma-focused care without overlooking dissociation or brain injury.