General medicine book suggestions

Chunky Monkey

We've been told that we need to find the books that suit us which is fair enough so I'm just looking for a place to start really.

For medicine, kumar and clark seems to be the one that everyone talks about but I read quite a few bad reviews of it on amazon and a third year turned around the other day and told me 'it's ****' and 'has a lot of mistakes' so now I'm confused I had to look up something myself and preferred Oxford for that particular thing but does anyone have any suggestions for other books to at least look at?

Thank you

Tree

Probably no use, but i tend to end up reading the merck manual when im sick. Seems to be available free online these days too.

charlieroot

The Oxford Handbook of medicine is good. Online I find the merck manual and www.uptodate.com very good. Emphasis on the last one - if your college or institution has a subscription.

tallaght01

An up to date Kumar and Clarke is probably the best there is. I have my doubts that there's loads of mistakes! It's what most people are using. I always found it really good.

DrIndy

medicine changes year on year and to be up to date, you need the newest edition every time.

I use the oxford handbooks for up to date information and guidelines in britain and ireland - kumar and clark has american guidelines which are slightly different in many areas - so it is best reserved for reference and oxford handbook used for practical aspects.

Chunky Monkey

Tree wrote: »

Probably no use, but i tend to end up reading the merck manual when im sick. Seems to be available free online these days too.

Free sounds good!

charlieroot wrote: »

The Oxford Handbook of medicine is good. Online I find the merck manual and www.uptodate.com very good. Emphasis on the last one - if your college or institution has a subscription.

It's not loading for me right now though we have problems with the internet at the moment. Thanks for the link I got the mini handbook today (free ) from the MPS and an Oxford medical dictionary (free again!) from the MDU.

tallaght01 wrote: »

An up to date Kumar and Clarke is probably the best there is. I have my doubts that there's loads of mistakes! It's what most people are using. I always found it really good.

Thanks tallaght Seems to be the majority saying it's good. I'll keep borrowing it from the lib for a wee while yet, being cheap.

DrIndy wrote: »

medicine changes year on year and to be up to date, you need the newest edition every time.

I use the oxford handbooks for up to date information and guidelines in britain and ireland - kumar and clark has american guidelines which are slightly different in many areas - so it is best reserved for reference and oxford handbook used for practical aspects.

Any opinions on the big, massively expensive Oxford book?

I saw on amazon there's a new moore and dalley coming out in feb. Last one was 2005 so I'm going to hold out for that one.

Still not sure whether to buy a new tortora or not. My mum is posting out mine though it's from 1989...bad idea?

sportswear

if you want my advice for medicine:


Oxford handbook
thats all you need. know it backwards. and that clinical signs book.whats it called the blue one thats all on clinical examination.

getting k+k is too much you'll never get through it.

Kwekubo

Have a look at Davidson. It's a comprehensive book like Kumar and Clarke, but smaller with less focus on physiology etc. I've only used it for PBL research so far, but I found it to be more manageable to read sometimes.

Also, the current K&C dates from 2005 - I have a feeling a new edition will come out soon, so it might be worth hanging onto your library copy for the moment.

Amnesiac_ie

If I had to pick one book and one book only it would have to be the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine. The 7th edition was reprinted in 2008 with corrections and is as up to date as hard copy can hope to be. It also now comes in full technicolour and with pretty pictures! But beghind the gloss it remains a simple, easy to read concise yet thorough overview of clinical medicine. Personally I think the teense weensy Pocket Version is just a little too dififcult to read to be practical.

There's this "theory" that registrars or people with their memberships should be "above" using the OHCM but I think that is bull**** and I proudly carry it to work every day.

As regards a big chunky reference book, I would agree with the posters who have highlighted that in 2008 we really should be using online resources rather than out of date text books. I struggled with Kumar and Clarke throughout college and in retrospect I don't think it was particularly helpful for me. www.uptodate.com is the gold standard online resource but if you can't afford a subscription www.emedicine.com is a wonderful and completely free alternative.

This might sound clichéed but I really think the best way to get to grips with Internal Medicine is to review your Physiology/Path notes, go to lectures, spend as much time on the wards, with the teams, in clinic and with patients and "read around" what you're experiencing on placement.

Vorsprung

Kumar and Clark is WAY above the needs of the undergraduate and should only be used for reference in my humble opinion. A fair few mistakes in there too as mentioned above.

OCHS is a quality book, I know of people who got 1.1s in Medicine using that book alone with good notes from lectures.

tallaght01

Its been a while since I used an adult textbook. But I used Kumar+Clarke all through med school and really liked it.

I don't know why they'd be using american guidelines, as the authors work in London (or they did when I was at med school). If I'm remembering correctly, too, the oxfors handbook is a small little book. It great when you're an intern as it's a quick guide. But when you've to write an essay on Von Willebrand's disease, you need the big book.

My advice: Borrow a few from the library and see which one you like. For me it was between Davidson's and kumar+clarke. But others disagree. It depends on what you like.

Also, bear in mind that lecturers will lecture heavily on the topics that they are likely to put in the exam. Your lecture notes should be a valuable resource.

We weren't allowed use Tortora for anatomy, as the guy wasn't from "a proper uni" lol. But I loved it anyway.

Winning Hand

Cecils essentials of medicine is pretty good at combining path with clinical aspects. Worked for both the USMLEs and most of the irish medicine course that was not based of Talley and O Connor

sillymoo

Best advice I can give is dont go buying massive amounts of books when you first start. Borrow from the library until you know what ones you like and dont like. Most people I know use Kumar and Clarke without difficulty and others love the Oxford handbook. Personal choice.

BTW I prefer Grey's combined with a good atlas over Tortora any day but im a picture book kind of girl :rolleyes: