Book excerpt: Written by Washington University house staff and faculty, this pocket guide is a quick reference for the hospital practice of psychiatric medicine in the inpatient psychiatric, consultation, and emergency settings. Each section addresses the most frequently encountered problems in these clinical settings and offers practical suggestions on how to obtain information, generate reasonable differential diagnoses, discriminate among diagnoses, and document clinical decisions. The book includes "Style Pointer" sections on patient interview skills and ED Rounds that outline clinical reasoning algorithms in the emergency setting. Class Notes sections explain how to concisely and thoroughly document patient encounters, emphasizing difficult medical-legal situations. The Washington Manual® Psychiatry Survival Guide is also available electronically for handheld computers. See PDA listing for details. The Washington Manual® is a registered mark belonging to Washington University in St. Louis to which international legal protection applies. The mark is used in this publication by LWW under license from Washington University.