Clinical skills, Psychiatric Phenomenology and Psychiatric Emergencies

The gist of this course will be to impart to the student the necessary clinical skills to be able to recognise, assess, diagnose, investigate and treat psychiatric disorders.  A Biopsychosocial model/approach will be used with special emphasis to teach the principles involved in eliciting and making sense of clinical signs and symptoms and in using this data to inform the clinical decision making process.  Throughout the semester, the knowledge and skills acquired for evidence-based clinical practice shall be used and further developed through supervised clinical practice.  The recognition, assessment and management of psychiatric emergencies will be taught.