Customer Reviews

Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects With STUDENT CONSULT Online Access, 7e (Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology & Birth Defects)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

UAMS listed Langman's Medical Embryology as our required embryo book. I hate Langman with a passion, as you can tell in my review of it. It is poorly written, contains less than useful 2-D figures making it difficult to visualize morphologic changes, and contains at least two errors in every single chapter (and I'm not talking about minutia; it's errors big enough that our lecturers have to mention them in class). So, I began searching for an alternate embryology book that covered the material in about the same depth as Langman. This is it. This book is concisely and CLEARLY written. It also contains more figures, and these figures have a 3-D feel to them that make embryology much more understandable. Also, it appears to have vastly fewer errors. If your medical school requires Langman, by all means get Langman. Many of my classmates find the book an enjoyable read, and this book isn't a Langman clone, so the information each book contains is slightly different. The author (Moore) is also the author of Clinically Oriented Anatomy (5th Edition), and he correlates embryologic structure to adult anatomy more than Langman, which I enjoy. But if you have Langman, hate it, and need a supplement, this delivers in spades.

"Before We Are Born" is an excellent introduction to embryology, particularly in comparison to "that other book" (Langman, my assigned text in medical school). Langman spends more time with molecular biology, while Moore & Persaud tend to gloss over the molecular aspects in favor of describing the etiology and appearance of various malformations (which is probably more clinically relevant, and to me, much more interesting!). This book is well-written and not too long (about 300 - 350 pages); if you prefer prose format over outline (like I do), this might make a good choice for USMLE review.

Unlike some of the other reviewers here, I was not taken with Moore & Persaud's illustrations. True, they are colorful and NUMEROUS (which definitely helps!). Still, embryology is, by necessity, highly visual and three-dimensional, and I often had trouble translating the cartoonish illustrations into a three-dimensional image.

This probably sounds like a major criticism, so you may wonder why I still gave it four stars. The writing is conversational and concise, largely making up for my problems with the images; and in any case, Langman's illustrations aren't any better (and there are far fewer), so it might just be the inherent difficulty in trying to illustrate such a complex topic. There are also tons of free embryology videos available online; so, whenever I had trouble visualizing a particular process in development, I looked up a relevant video online, which usually gave me the last little "push" into comprehension.

All in all-- highly recommended for coursework and review, especially in conjunction with online resources.

Moore's Textbook on Embryology is the best text I have found that describes the develpoment of the human embryo/fetus. The text is detailed and the pictures support the text very well. I would recommend it for anyone studying human development in utero

This book is amazing. I needed it for an Embryo class and found it to be very easy to read and understand, full of useful and interesting knowledge. It even includes actual size pictures of the embryo and fetus. I highly recommend this book if you are taking any kind of anatomy class that teaches about early life stages. You will learn a lot and I plan to keep this book even for my Chiropractic practice after I graduate.

Very good for first year medical students or others wanting to learn more about early development. Nice pictures and not especially difficult language/terminology.

For anyone that has taken an embriology class, you know how challenging it can be at times to conceptualize embrionic and fetal periods and learn all those atypical word that change from week to week. This book does a very poor job illustrating the changes taking place in the embryo and fetus. The illustrations are very poor quality and the organization of events from one week to another is very poor. It jumps front and back with events instead of keeping chronological order to make learning more logical, fun and easy. I bought the book as a required text for my Embyo class, but found myself continuosly going to the web to look for videos or other resources that could further expand my understanding of what's happening. Even more so during the emryonic period. U can pass a class with it, but it will be horrible :-D. I gave it 3 stars because at the end, it has the info there, just the delivery of the info could be vastly improved. Enjoy!

I Like Dr Moore and his other book Clinically oriented anatomy
Dr Moore books are clearly written and supported with figures.

I am a neurologist in practice.
And I like to mention the good thing about dr Moore ,
that:
After he was told about Muslims Quran, and how it described embryology, he admitted that Quran can not be Made by a man, but it has to be revelation.
he added to his second edition of this book the information he learned from Quran and the saying of Prophet Muhammad.
This is really an honest scholar.
Our knowledge need to be grounded by our connection to God.
It's understandable how the west left the church "abuse"
but they need not to leave God
as we see in this example how true Revelation(Quran) and science dont contradict each other.
You can check [...], on Quran miracles.
I always wonder how can scientist refuse God.