Medicine - Reviews & Recommendations

This is the biggie - a considerably heavier volume than the 'pocket' Oxford Handbook, but then it is considerably more detailed. It contains excellent explanations and the bright, colourful format prevents it from inducing extreme boredom. The best way to approach this book is to start early in your clinical course and to read about individual conditions as you encounter them; this will allow you to slowly work through the material, without being set back too much by its potentially fearsome size.

This is one of the best textbooks for General Medicine. It is concise, full of facts and most of all, is colourful - which makes a huge difference when it comes to revision time. Some sections do require some additional material (either from other books or teaching sessions) to supplement their content, or you may not quite learn enough about a particular topic. This does not, however, stop this book from being a definite essential.

This book is considered by both, students and doctors, to be one of the 'gold standard' must have books. Legend has it that if you know everything in this book, you can pass finals. Just to be on the safe side we would recommend looking at slightly more than just this, but that does not stop this book from being an ideal 'quick reference' guide that will serve you well for more than just your student days. With new 'mini' and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) versions out, the increased portability of this book has given it yet more edge towards maintainings its crown as 'the one book you carry with you everywhere'.

This one gets mixed reviews. Some people absolutely love it, some hate it. Whilst no-one will argue that it is small and pocket-sized, learning about ECGs is a very individual thing. Some like to learn the patterns, while others prefer to understand the underlying scientific principles. This book takes the middle ground and tries to do a little bit of both. For the most part, however, it is a useful guide to the basics of understanding the ECG.

With over 400 images of clinical signs, this book helps compensate for all those days of your clinical attachments that have mysteriously vanished thanks to all those late night...um...revision sessions (that, of course, made you miss examining lots of patients and seeing signs). There's nothing more frustrating than spotting a sign on a patient in your exam but not knowing what it is because you've not seen it before - you may know that neurofibromas are associated with MEN2b, but do you know what neurofibromas actually look like? Make sure you do; this is a book that definitely requires flicking through at least once before your practical exam or OSCE.

Another book with a 'love-hate' audience. Either way, this book is basically a collection of lists, that emphasise the categorisation of every condition into a standardised system (i.e. incidence, presentation, management, complications, etc.) Taken alone, it's a rather dry way of learning, but as a final revision aid this style has advantages. For one, it is an ideal book to use for testing your knowledge of those hard-to-recall facts in the last few weeks before the exams. Even better, get others to ask you specific questions based upon the lists in the book during group revision sessions - it's great practice for the real-thing.