What books could you recommend for third year? Do I really need a big book like Harrison’s or Kelly’s, or can I just use the library at the hospital? Do I need a PDA? Thank you
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What books could you recommend for third year? Do I really need a big book like Harrison’s or Kelly’s, or can I just use the library at the hospital? Do I need a PDA? Thank you
Hi there,
I attended allopathic school but I recently posted some information under the “Questions about Step II” thread: I will cut and paste:
Hi there,
Good books for shelf exams and clinical rotations:
Internal Medicine: MKSAP for Medical Students - these exams will kick your butt but you really learn good stuff. Baby Cecil’s or Cecil’s Essentials of Internal Medicine.
Family Practice: Swanson’s
Pediatrics: Baby Nelson’s (Essentials of Pediatrics)
OB-Gyn: BRS Obstetrics and Gynecology and BluePrints for OB-Gyn.
General Surgery: Lawrence: General Surgery Lawrence: Surgical Specialties and Mont Reid.
Psychiatry: On-Call Psychiatry
My order of clerkships: Pediatrics(Howard University Hospital and Childrens Hospital National Medical Center), Family Practice (Providence Hospital and Georgetown Family Practice Center in Ft. Washington), Surgery(Howard University Hospital), OB-Gyn (Howard University Hospital and Prince Georges General Hospital), Medicine (Howard University Hospital, Inova Fairfax Hospital, Bread for the City Free Clinic). Neurology/Neurosurgery(Howard University Hospital and Inova Fairfax Hospital).
I spent the first two weeks of my month in Radiology studing for Step II and took it first week in September. (Our third year runs through the second week of August).
I didn’t know that wanted to do Surgery until I did the rotation. I was initially leaning towards Pediatrics and stayed on course for Peds until I did Surgery in the middle of the winter. It turned out to be a great schedule me.
Lots of people say not to do your rotations in what you want to do first but order of third year does not make much difference and I did not have a choice. At Howard, we are assigned to groups randomly.
Just some thoughts if you have a choice about third year.
Natalie
There may be some differences so your best source of information on your third year is the upperclassmen at your school. I used a PDA during my third year and continue to do so but you can easily get by without one as I did last year(my PGY-2 residency year General Surgery). Good pocket books: Sanford Manual, Pocket Pharmacopaea and "How to Be a Truly Excellent Junior Medical Student and/or Maxwell’s.
Osteopathic may be a bit different so check with your upperclassmen and clinical professors.
Natalie
Hi there,
Here is a copy of another post that I did two or three years ago:
Hi folks,
Medicine clerkship is generally your longest and in some cases, your most important third-year clerkship. It is during this clerkship that you will learn most of the practical information that will help you practice in any specialty.
Your main job as a junior medical student is to lessen the load of the team to which you have been assigned. This may take on many aspects such as obtaining a good history and physical exam, doing phlebotomy, tracking down radiographs and studies, keeping track of laboratory results, getting daily progress notes written and doing simple bedside procedures such as arterial blood gas sampling, starting IV lines, placing NG tubes and generally participating as much as possible in the total care of the patients assigned to you. The more that you participate in the care of your patient, the more you will learn.
1. Read everything you can on your patient’s disease and its process. This will help you anticipate problems as they arise and will help you learn to manage cases more independently.
2. Read about every medication that you patient is on both in hospital and outside the hospital. This will help you keep current on clinical pharmacology. Are there other drugs that might be a better fit your patient?
3. Try to be present if you patient has studies and procedures by interventional radiology, cardiology or gastroenterology. Nothing is better than seeing the original pathology or procedure. Learn to write a procedure note.
4. Learn the anatomy and proper placement techniques for: Central lines in the internal jugular, subclavian and femoral veins; arterial lines and Swan-Ganz catheters. Know your landmarks and ask to assist on these procedures.
5. Review your patient’s radiographs with your intern, resident or the radiologist often. Learn how to systematically read a chest radiograph. Look at every chest film in the same order so that you do not forget anything.
6. Learn how to insert a Foley catheter using proper aseptic techniques.
7. Learn differential diagnoses for: abdominal pain, chest pain, back pain, shortness of breath, fever of unknown origin FUO, anemia, fatigue, weight loss and syncope.
8. Learn how to work up: chest pain, pulmonary edema, shortness of breath, fever of unknown origin, gastrointestinal bleeding, anemia, rectal bleeding and change in mental status.
9. Know how to write general admission’s orders for patients: ADCVANDIMLS A-Admit; D-Diagnosis; C-Condition; V-Vitals;A - Allergies;A-Activity;N-Nursing; D- Diet; I-IV fluids; M-Medications; L-Labs and S-Special stuff. Ask your intern or resident to let you write admission orders on every patient that you can.
10. Learn how to do a good patient presentation to your resident and attending. Get your intern to go over your presentation before you present to the attending.
11. Learn how to write a good ICU progress note that is systems based. Learn your ICU parameters and indices.
12. Find a method of organizing your data and stay with it. Palm pilots, note cards, papers on a clip board and other methods are good but you have to be able to get your hands on your material quickly.
13. Read at least one hour each day and review on weekends. Try to cover a major topic per week such as cardiology, endocrinology, gastorenterology, infectious diseases, nephrology, hematology, oncology and rheumatology. Do some questions and case studies.
Good pocket books that I have found useful:
The Washington Manual (available for Palm)
Pocket Pharmacopaea (available for Palm)
Epocrates on Palm
Ferri Manual of Patient Care
Pocket Doctor
For lengthy reading:
Harrison’s Internal Medicine (the gold standard)
Cecil’s Internal Medicine
Hurst’s The Heart
Textbook of Intensive Care
Read the case resports and review articles in the New England Journal of Medicine. This material is often pimped on Medicine clerkships. Read at least the abstracts for the other articles in NEJM and JAMA.
Finally, enjoy yourself. You probably won’t be asked to stay later than 10:30pm on call nights and 5pm on other nights. Try to be a good team player and pitch in when things are busy. Don’t whine! Even if you hate internal medicine, don’t whine! Your evaluation is very subjective and is largely based on how helpful you have been to the team. The team includes: Attending, Chief Resident, Senior Resident, Intern, Acting-Intern and other Medical students.
Have fun and learn!
(Edited by njbmd at 11:32 pm on Mar. 25, 2002)
"Natalie J. Belle, M.D.
Le Général Résident Surgeon
Cleveland Clinic Health Systems
Cleveland, OH
"Vivent votre vie chaque jour car vous escaladeriez une montagne. Un regard occasionnel vers le sommet maintient le but dans l'esprit, mais beaucoup de belles scènes doivent être observées de chaque nouvelle position avantageuse."
""Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An
occasional glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind,
but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new
vantage point."" Harold B. Melchart"
Nat what books are essential for first year students? the “must have” ones?
Hi there,
I would not buy a single book until after you find out what you need during orientation week. My second year advisor gave me all of my first year books. You may be in the same situation. Wait a few more weeks and read some trashy novels or watch some movies. You won’t have much time after classes start.
Natalie
Thank you for all of your help.
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Nat what books are essential for first year students? the “must have” ones?
Hey efex,
Having just finished 1st year (yay!), I can tell you what I bought. I got very few of the “required” textbooks and a lot of review books. The ones I like a lot were:
BRS Physiology
BRS Cell Biology & Histology
Neuroanatomy Made Ridiculously Simple
First Aid for the USMLE Step 1
Netter’s flashcards (I used them more than the atlas)
Microcards (by Harpavat) for infectious disease which you may not have until 2nd year
I have several more, but these were most useful to me.
I bought textbooks for Histology (Junqueira), Immunology (Abbas), Pathology (big Robbins), and Embryology (Larsen). I wouldn’t recommend buying textbooks until you find out which ones your profs use. I used Junqueira extensively because my prof relied on it heavily. However, the others I used just for reference or for the pictures.
Mostly, I used my syllabus (which was a textbook in itself) to study, along with my notes from lecture. I used the review books to see it again in a different format, and to quiz myself.
I was very happy studying with review books, and it helped me pick out the “high yield” information from the immense amount of information we are given in class.
Hope this helps. I wouldn’t recommend studying now - wait until school starts. But it doesn’t hurt to start looking for cheap/used copies of some things.
Good luck!!!
You can use the hospital library for most of your in-depth reading. I had a few small books that I would bring with me, but that was it. I had a pharmacopia, maxwells, washington manual or boards for the wards(very basic, but good).
Good luck,