Lewis's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Review: 1400 Questions To Help You Pass The Boards

LEWIS'S CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY REVIEW: 1400 QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU PASS THE BOARDS by Yann B. Poncin, M.D. and Thomas Prakash, M.D. 2009. WoltersKluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, New York. 261 pages, soft cover, $59.95.

P reparing for the child and adolescent psychiatry boards can be a potentially formidable task. This is true whether one is taking the Boards for the first time (when you are not quite sure what to expect) or for maintenance of certification (MOC) (when you have to potentially catch up on almost ten years of advances and changes). Reading the most current version of one of the several standard textbooks in child and adolescent psychiatry is obviously one way to go. However, after reading all of the material in one of these books (and they are getting larger as the depth of knowledge in this field increases at an almost exponential rate), one finds themselves wondering how much information has actually been retained. Sample questions are one good way to find out, but in this field they are somewhat hard to find.

In fact, there only two other existing review books; there is also one due to be published in 2010. The first is by Stephen J. Cozza, Robert E. Hales, Narriman C. Shahrokh (Study Guide to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: A Companion to the American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 3^rd Edition). Published in 2006, it contains 287 questions in 56 small quizzes (one quiz for each chapter) of 5 to 10 review questions each. The second, the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for the Specialty Board Review is by Robert L Hendren and Hong Shen. Published in 2007, it contains several hundred questions taken from material derived from the prominent child and adolescent psychiatry textbooks at that time. And in 2010, the Study Guide to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: A Companion to Dulcan's Textbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by Hong Shen, M.D., Robert E. Hales, M.D., M.B.A., and Narriman C. Shahrokh will be released. This book contains 332 questions in 65 small quizzes (one for each chapter) of 5 to 10 review questions for each chapter of this new book.

This current review book is written by Drs. Yann B. Poncin and Prakash K. Thomas. These two child and adolescent psychiatrists at the Yale Child Study Center are described in the Foreword by Dr. Andres Martin as two very fine educators with much teaching experience. The book itself follows a slightly different format compared to the previously mentioned books; rather than containing sets of questions from each chapter of its companion book, it consists of seven separate 200 question examinations.

Each test has questions from the relevant topics listed in the Content Outline for the child and adolescent psychiatry boards (e.g. Development, Biological Science, Psychopathology/classification/differential diagnosis, Clinical Science, etc.) in randomized order and in a similarly weighted percentage compared to the real boards. The answers immediately follow each test, and each answer has the number of the page where the topic of the question was discussed in Lewis's book. At the end there is an index of various topics with a list of the question numbers for each test that correspond to that topic (e.g. for Tic Disorders-Test 1: questions 55, 105, 116; Test 2: 43, 144, 160). This allows one to read a chapter in Lewis's book and then go back and test one's knowledge of that chapter. Or if one has a particular area of weakness, they can then focus on those questions. And the book ends with a standard index as well.

Although the test questions are similar to those on the boards, there are also several differences. First of all, some “extra” topics are included (training and education is one) that one might not expect to see on the Boards. Secondly, true/false questions are used, a question type that is not seen on the Boards. The authors point this out in the preface and explain that some of the points that they wanted to “test” could not be easily put into a multiple-choice format. In addition, the answer sections tend to be on the brief side; often one just gets the letter answer and the corresponding page number in the text. This is unlike other review books in which the author(s) explains not only why an answer is correct but also why the other answers are wrong. However, given the fact that there are 1,400 questions, to do this might make a book that is so large that it becomes unmanageable. And finally, the fact that one can do seven full “dress rehearsals” makes this a very valuable and cost effective book.

Having recently (2007) taken the MOC in child and adolescent psychiatry, I decided to give this book a “test drive” to see how helpful it is (or would have been). After completing two full tests, I came to the following conclusions. First of all, the format was quite similar to taking the boards. There is usually some apprehension of what to expect when taking a test like this; if I had reviewed these questions before the exam I think that I would have felt more “at home” taking the MOC. Secondly, the questions were definitely harder compared to those on the MOC. The authors also allude to this in the preface, and they are correct. Nonetheless, it was a good mental workout, and the only risk I can see in this is that one might be over prepared (if such a state could ever be possible).

There is one suggestion, perhaps for future editions, and that is to include clinical vignettes as a part of the questions. This is for two reasons. First of all, at least for the MOC, these were somewhat common types of questions. But even more important, it is often much easier to remember an answer when it is associated with a clinical case.

In conclusion, this is definitely a review book that would be of great help in preparing for either the initial or the MOC in child and adolescent psychiatry examination. And even better still, it makes the seemingly overwhelming task of preparing for these tests much more manageable and almost, at times, fun.