SystemWise Pharm · Psychiatry

4 drug groups.
One resource. One method.

You are not revising all of pharmacology today. You are revising the 4 drug groups that belong to psychiatry — the list is below — and every one of them comes from the same place: Osmosis. That is the whole decision, already made. The method is FWRT.

Why this page exists

Pharmacology is not hard. Pharmacology is disorganized. Hundreds of drugs in First Aid, nobody tells you which ones the exam asks about, and every resource teaches a different subset well and the rest badly. So students watch everything, from everywhere, twice — and lose three weeks. This page removes the decision-making for psychiatry. Four groups, one resource, four steps, done.

Never done Sketchy? Read this first

If you have only ever used First Aid, you can revise every drug on this page from First Aid and the FA Guide alone, together with the High-Yield Pharmacology PDF. The drug list below is still your list; only the source changes. You will not fail for skipping the videos.

But if you have the time, invest in the resource named against each group — Sketchy, Osmosis or Dirty Medicine, whichever this page specifies. That naming is the product: somebody already worked out which one teaches that group best, so you never sample three videos to find the good one. If you can afford the hours, use both.

PART ONEThe FWRT method

Four steps, in order, for every drug group. You do not move to the next system until all four are done for this one.

F

Find the resource

Already done for you, for psychiatry: every group below is Osmosis. No split, no exception — all four from Osmosis.

Why: no one tells you which drug is high-yield or where to learn it, so you either learn all 400 equally — impossible — or you pick a resource and hope. The map is the answer to that. It is what turns three weeks into two days.
W

Watch — twice, not once

Open the video for that drug group from Osmosis — and nothing else. Not the Sketchy version too. Not a third opinion on YouTube. Watch each video twice, back to back.

Why: pharm is dense — mechanism, indication, side effects, interactions, stacked into a few minutes. One pass gets you recognition, not recall. Two passes of one video beats one pass of two videos, every time.
R

Read — and highlight what didn't survive

After you have watched all four groups — not after each video, after the whole system — go back to the High-Yield Pharmacology PDF and read those same drugs. Whatever you could not retain, highlight those lines.

Why: those highlighted lines are your memory gaps — the facts that did not survive two viewings. Everything unhighlighted is done and you never touch it again. That is the entire diagnostic, and it is earned rather than guessed.
T

Test yourself

First Aid Guide → Psychiatry → Pharmacology. Every drug you just watched is explained there with MCQs attached, page by page, following First Aid.

Why: watching and reading are input. The MCQs force you to apply it, which is the only thing the exam ever asks you to do. This is the step that closes the loop.
What "done" means

Psychiatry pharm is done when the MCQs are done and the highlighted lines have been re-read once. Not when the videos are watched. Watching is the cheapest part of this method and the least predictive of your score.

PART TWOThe 4 psychiatry drug groups

This is the entire psychiatry row of the resource map. If a group is not here, it is not in your 48 hours — that is the point of stratification.

All Osmosis · 4 groups
  1. 01SSRIs, SNRIs and atypical antidepressants — Osmosis
  2. 02Antipsychotics — Osmosis
  3. 03Lithium — Osmosis
  4. 04TCAs — Osmosis
No decisions on this row

Psychiatry runs from a single resource with no split and no exception. Four videos, one place. The only way to lose time here is to go looking for a second opinion — don't cross-check resources. The map already made that decision.

PART THREEOne drug group, worked through

Here is FWRT applied to the first group on the list, in full, so you know exactly what each step looks like before you do it three more times.

Worked example · 01 of 04 SSRIs, SNRIs and atypical antidepressants
F

The resource is already chosen — Osmosis

Do not open Sketchy to compare. Do not search YouTube for a better explanation of the SSRIs. The map decided; your job is to watch.

W

Watch the antidepressant videos twice, back to back

Not once today and once tomorrow — twice, now. The second pass is where it stops being a story you recognise and becomes a mechanism you can retrieve.

You should be able to say, without looking The mechanism of each class · which drug the stem is written for, and why · the side effects that decide between two right-looking answers · what happens when serotonergic drugs are combined
R

Read the antidepressant pages of the PDF — after all four groups

Not now. Finish the antipsychotics, lithium and the TCAs first, then read all four together and highlight only what did not come back. If half the page ends up yellow, you did not watch twice.

T

Do the MCQs — First Aid Guide → Psychiatry → Pharmacology

This group only, in the order First Aid presents it. Getting one wrong here costs you two minutes and fixes the gap permanently; the same gap found on test day costs you the mark.

Then three more times

That is one group. Do the same for the antipsychotics, lithium and the TCAs — and psychiatry pharm is finished. Do not start another system's drugs. Do not go back to the map. Close this and move to your psychiatry First Aid reading.

Open the FA Guide → Psychiatry Pharmacology The High-Yield Pharmacology PDF
The full 48-hour pharmacology method Back to my schedule