Medical book reviews, education, and commentary.
There are very few good orthopedics books that are suitable for the non-orthopedist audience, and I think I know why. Generalists often lack the specialized knowledge that orthopedists have, while orthopedists tend to see more extreme versions of musculoskeletal conditions—a problem known as spectrum bias—so their recommendations often seem overly aggressive to generalist readers. This … Read more
Dermatology for the USMLE (2017) is only about 150 pages long but it’s packed with all the buzzwords and images that you need to know for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) and other standardized tests. This is not a foundational textbook in dermatology so you’d probably be doing yourself a disservice if you … Read more
Surgical Recall (2017) is a marked improvement upon Surgical Recall (2012), which I reviewed elsewhere. The 2017 edition, like its predecessor, is packed with high-yield clinical information. While the book is obviously surgery oriented, most of the material in it is extremely relevant to most major medical specialties, including internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics. … Read more
The idea behind Neurology: A Clinician’s Approach (2016) … is to group diseases in the way in which they appear clinically…. I recommend it to more advanced rotating third and fourth year medical students, particularly those with a serious interest in internal medicine, neurology or neurosurgery.
Basic Ophthalmology: Essentials for Medical Students (2016) is an excellent book about the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders. The book provides a coherent and organized approach to ocular disorders. Namely: The Eye Examination Acute Vision Loss Chronic Vision Loss The Red Eye Ocular and Orbital Injuries Amblyopia and Strabismus Neuro-Ophthalmology Eyelid, Orbital, and Lacrimal … Read more
Atlas of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology (2019) offers a bleak and sometimes depressing window into the state of health, or lack thereof, of underdeveloped countries, particularly those in Africa. The names of the diseases and symptoms are fearsome and sometimes curious: dengue, blackwater fever, rabies, leprosy, bubonic plague and more. The images are equally striking … Read more
Color Textbook of Pediatric Dermatology (2007) would ordinarily lie on the margins of the spectrum of books that I’d consider review-worthy: it’s approximately 400 pages long, has multiple authors and is, well, a textbook. Longer, multiple-author textbooks tend to fall apart conceptually at about 400 pages in length. This book, however, holds things together very … Read more