Customer Reviews

Emergency Medicine: Just the Facts, Second Edition

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

 

 

I want to post a preliminary review - not because I don't have opinions about this book, but because I don't have the time to write an in depth one. I think it is great that this book exists as a means to prepare for EM exams. But it suffers GREATLY from a lack of editing and coherent organization. There are many, many, many errors (using Tintanelli #6 as reference). For example:

"Patients older than 40 years are unlikely to have rotator cuff tears."

I am not so sure about this, it doesn't make sense really.

Searching in the big T book, I find "Patients with rotator cuff tears are almost always older than 40 years of age: rotator cuff tears in the young are rare." !!!!!!

This can get very time consuming and confusing. Some chapters are written and organized quite well, others are nothing but a mess, with very poor organization - going back and forth arbitrarily between disease entities, adding something about the pregnant patient, back to the first disease, then to the second one, etc. etc. One example (not the worst) is the way HUS and HSP are presented. The chapter on stroke is organized very poorly, without a clear hierarchical (anatomic?) structure. I just don't find this a good way to put the picture together in my mind of a particular disease, gathering the relevant data and moving on. Also many diseases are spread throughout the book, piecemeal, with sometimes conflicting information. I think it would be much, much better to write conclusively about a disease entity in one place and one place only. I don't find it so helpful to have bits of Lyme disease spread around in infectious disease, neurology and non-traumatic musculoskeletal disorder chapters! Maybe that is just me. There are many, many simple mistakes ("peroneal" nerve, not "perineal") that make it seem like this book simply was not edited by someone who understood the material. Some of the chapters are excellent, as I mentioned, but many are very poorly organized with lots of filler, not particularly helpful or clear explanations and a lot left out. The two column, bulleted design, does not always work well, or, more often, is used poorly. There are other books that fill this niche - I would recommend looking at them before settling on this book simply because it has the standard color scheme on its cover. ;)

I used this review book to study for my recert exam (ConCert) on Nov 3'07. I went back to the book immediately after the exam and found ~95% or more of the answers to the questions that were on the exam. If you are worried about detail - use tintinalli (and take a year to prepare!)This review book does not get into great detail, but neither did the exam! Most info is upto date (except recommend cipro for GC and no mention of MRSA). If you give yourself 2 months, you can easily cover the 600+ pages. there are no questions and no pics/stimulus type items. I would highly recommend this review book for the recertifying exam, and have so to the other attendings in my ED. i don't think i would recommend this to residents.

This read is not only sufficient for students and professionals alike, but remains as a solid material for review for any exam. It provides one with the basic clinical knowledge that is required of one who practices in an ED, or similar type of setting. The only pitfall is that there is limited detail regarding syndromes and illnesses. Still a great read and review.

price should have been cheaper due to the excess underlines & writing in the book. had it been stated would not have purchased the book in this condition unless it was cheaper. next time when saying used be clearer due to the fact that most books described as used tend to have bent pages & things of that matter.

Easy review format of information from the 6th edition of Emergency Medicine by Tintinalli. This gives a quick review of the sections in the big book. Not exactly a 1 for 1 review but the format is simple, quick and high points are taken and presented in a sequential format.
Makes for good review before testing. Read the Big Book first, then review with this one. Easy to read, lots of room in margins for notes or highlights.

One of the few ED review books I've liked. I found the right amount of detail that suited me. Took me a fortnight to go through.
I reckon it would be a great review for non- ED docs during their ED rotations . Overall, Five Stars!

Great book. Not just for emergency medicine but for medicine in general. I highly recommend this book.