Medical book reviews, education, and commentary.
Mark Yoffe, MD 
Medical books are far less important for reference than they once were. For many clinical questions, artificial intelligence and other digital tools are faster, more portable, easier to search, and better able to compare alternatives. A clinician can ask a focused question, refine it, challenge the answer, and explore several possibilities without searching through an … Read more
The stated aim of Primary Care Otolaryngology (2019) is “to provide the necessary information for medical students and allied health professionals.” The book “is designed to provide guidance on how to manage uncomplicated problems that can be taken care of by a patient’s primary care provider” and to “facilitate the recognition of potentially serious problems … Read more
Rheumatology Made Ridiculously Simple (2020) is a concise and clear overview of rheumatology. The book starts with a discussion of how to evaluate patients with joint pain, and then proceeds with a detailed overview of the diagnoses and management of all the important rheumatological diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the spondyloarthropathies and … Read more
A review of a detailed surgical anatomy text designed to connect anatomical knowledge with the technical demands of open operations.
In a rather crowded field of exceptional books on electrocardiography, Basic and Bedside Electrocardiography (2009) stands out as one of the finest—perhaps among the top four or five. The book, written by a cardiologist with a lot of experience teaching cardiology to medical students and residents at an academic center, is quite different from most … Read more
Forget about the rather limiting and convoluted title of this book. It’s an outstanding overview of practical clinical epidemiology and biostatistics. To better understand what this book can do for you, consider, Essential Biostatistics: A Nonmathematical Approach (2015), which I reviewed elsewhere. That book is also a qualitative description of important concepts biostatistics concepts, but … Read more
Raven Neurology Review: For the Medical Student Clerkship (2018) is an excellent clinical neurology book that is geared toward intermediate-level medical students, particularly those who are taking a neurology clerkship or studying for the shelf examination. Presentations are mostly case-based. For example, the book (page 135) provides a case of a young female with obesity … Read more