Lucky for me, my family and I have quite the history with this stuff – between all of our meds, we can cover the entirety of modern psychopharmacology. (e.g. I don’t need any flashcards to remember that akathisia is a side-effect of aripiprazole, because I vividly remember my sister’s restless leg syndrome that month, thank you very much.
…AND the resulting orthostatic hypotension from the ropinirole she took for said restless leg syndrome. And the ensuing drama of switching from calling the whole thing a bust and switching from aripiprazole to quetiapine, which happened to worsen her OCD, leading to several weeks of me being awakened at 4am by the suspicious rustling sound of her sneaking into my room, hunching over in the dark, and reorganizing my bookshelf.
… It was a long month.)
But seriously, NBME – think this shit through: You start getting all fancy, trying to iron out the upper-end of the bell curve by asking random questions about the side-effects of a 3rd-line drug? That’s just an overly efficient way of penalizing the mentally healthy.
Not that I mind, since it leaves me and my colorful psych history feeling pretty good about my grade, but – really – is this what you want, shelf-exam writers? Affirmative action for the serotinergically-challenged?
… if so, cool.
… I’ll take it.
Action Potential 