Clerkship Survival Guide

Clerkship is tough! The following are some tips on surviving the psychiatry clerkship.

During your rotation, learning to develop interview skills is key. Depending on the population you are working with, you may need to do a more specialized child and adolescent or geriatric interview.

The way you present your patient's history helps frame a story and diagnosis in the listener's mind. For example, in internal medicine, a patient with diabetes might have their story described as: “This is a 56 year-old man with a history of Type II diabetes, HbA1c of 9.2%, poorly controlled on insulin.” Here is one way to present your patients to keep yourself organized, and your listener focused:

• Patient name, age, relationship status, children, employment status (and occupation), income assistance/financial status
• Voluntary vs. involuntary patient
• Pertinent past psychiatric diagnoses vs no past psychiatric history
• Chief complaint / Reason for admission
• Present the psychiatric history as obtained from the interview
• Present a formulation and plan

• The Hub: Psychiatry
• Kadiyala, P. K. (2020). Mnemonics for diagnostic criteria of DSM V mental disorders: a scoping review. General Psychiatry, 33(3).