First Aid for the Medicine Clerkship

by S. Matthew Stead, Latha G. Stead, Matthew S. Kaufman, et al.

Book Overview

This text aims to give medical students tips on how to survive the clerkship and do well on the shelf exam. It covers each topic necessary, offers overviews of approriate Web sites and notes... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071448756
• ISBN13: 9780071448758
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Medical Publishing
• Length: 404 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.5" x 10.8"

Customer Reviews

Great Foundation for Internal Med

Reading First Aid is a very effective use of time. The book is reasonably long (considering the breadth of Internal Med) and hits the basics for working up various diseases. If there's something in First Aid you don't know, you should know it. First Aid also has side boxes with more obscure pearls of wisdom (e.g., isolated gastric varicies = splenic vein thrombosis) that does get asked by attendings and on tests. Since First Aid is relatively brief and written more in a check-list format, it's much more helpful to analyze it several times than leisurely cover it once. You have to memorize Light's criteria, not simply have a vague idea of it. If I just read this book, I wouldn't like it. Instead, I would cover up knowledge and try to actively recall it. That said, First Aid is just a foundation. I found Pocket Medicine an outstanding compliment for the wards (EVERYbody had it on Internal Med). It's like a Pocket Doc. If you need further elaboration on a subject, I would use this. Why not just use Pocket Medicine? Well, it's a little too dense/long (although it does fit well in a white coat). Also helpful are practice questions. MKSAP 2 and 3 for students were good for this. First Aid tends to list the classic signs and symptoms for a disease, but MKSAP shows how board examiners would put it into question form. In summary, First Aid is a great foundation for an overwhelming rotation. If you like reading texts, Medicine by Fishman et al might be good. I preferred First Aid, though, because I could look at it and not get a headache. I felt confident during my rotation and scored in the 98th percentile on the shelf (though luck is a part of that...)

First Aid for the Medicine Clerkship

This is a concise book, perfect for MSIIIs starting their IM Clerkship; it is also great for Step 2 review and the Medicine Shelf. MSIIIs can use this as an IM starting point and fill in the details concerning their own patients using Harrison's, Up to Date, or Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment.

Very useful but not by itself

First Aid for the Medicine Clerkship is a great book that gives you the key facts about many diseases. This is information that will help you answer questions during rounds and on exams. It's very well done, with nice illustrations. It's easy to get through, which is important since there's so much to learn during the Internal Medicine rotation (and not enough time!). I also recommend:1) Practical Guide to the Care of the Medical Patient by Ferri because you need something to help you take care of patients. First Aid for the Medicine Clerkship isn't great for managing patients or working them up2) Tarascon Pocket Pharmacopoeia because you need something for drug information (if you have epocrates, then you don't necessarily need this). First Aid for the Medicine Clerkship doesn't have much about drugs. Another plus is it's fairly cheap.3) Internal Medicine Clerkship: 150 Biggest Mistakes because you need something that gives you the nuts and bolts of the rotation. This book tells you how to preround, give great oral case presentations, prepare complete write-ups, and impress during attending rounds. A lot of tips on how to get great evaluations. Not much of this is is in First Aid for the Medicine Clerkship.4) Access to uptodate or some other medicine reference to help you work up patients.5) Pretest book - you need to do questions before the shelf exam.Bottom line is First Aid for the Medicine Clerkship is a great book but you need other things to help you do well during the rotation. Good luck!

Dr Schumacher MD

This is one of the best usmle review books available.The whole First aid series is the best to do well on the Usmle

First Aid for the Medicine clerkship

The best book I have used in medical so far. Questions I was pimped on during rounds, issues relevent to patient management, weird physical exam findings, strange syndromes (Felty's anyone?)were all covered in this book. I pretty much memorized the whole book, and all my attendings and residents during my medicine clerkship commented that my fund of knowledge was excellent. Everyone gave me honors, and it was literally all because of this book. Probably not adequate enough for the NBME shelf exam however, but combine it with some old kaplan step 2 questions and honoring that should be no sweat either. GET THIS BOOK!