Essentials of General Surgery [Paperback]

Peter F. Lawrence (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0683301330 | ISBN-13: 978-0683301335 | Publication Date: January 15, 2000 | Edition: 3rd

Highly illustrated and extensively revised, Dr. Lawrence has gone to great lengths to provide the most current and up-to-date information on general surgery in this long-awaited Third Edition. This text follows the need-to-know information and objectives relating to specific diseases and areas of surgery that the Association of Surgical Educators has deemed essential for all physicians. New to this edition: multiple choice questions afford the reader an opportunity to prepare for the USMLE Step 2...Case Studies are presented in each chapter to help students to better assimilate the material...an Atlas provides detailed images of surgical procedures and disease states.

Product Details

• Paperback: 650 pages
• Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 3rd edition (January 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0683301330
• ISBN-13: 978-0683301335
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #192,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mushy, January 29, 2006

By 

46&2 (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Essentials of General Surgery (Paperback)

Lawrence's book tends to be controversial; some students sing its paens while others think its best use is in the recycle bin. I purchased this book with an interest in surgery and was overall disappointed. It does a decent job of covering all aspects of a surgical disease (pathophys, workup, treatment), but overall it's a mess. When I wanted a definitive answer, it felt like Lawrence would say do this, but some physicians do this, new research states this, etc. When you take a shelf exam, you can only give one answer. Lawrence made things hazy. This is how it work in the real world at times, but the real world also demands a strict answer. Next step is ____, next thing to order is ____.

The book is organized like most surgical texts; it starts off with nonsurgical chapters on fluids & electrolytes, nutrition, etc. While necessary, they're extremely boring and things start to sound the same (hypokalemia vs hypomag vs etc). First Aid and NMS tend to make better deliniations. After reading Lawrence, I still didn't have a good idea how to preop/postop a patient (each case is different, but there are some generalities or bread and butter cases), nor could I easily reference this book for quick answers.

I spent a lot of time wading through this book, but in the end I don't know if I learned much because everything became vague or nonmemorable. Each chapter has some multiple choice questions (weak) and a final Q&A oral review (good).

The surgery clerkship can be exhausting and time intensive. I wish I had spent my time with a different text. The surgery shelf exam smacked me a good one.

A better option would be to just memorize Surgical Recall thoroughly and do several question books or case scenarios (NMS Casebook). Surgeons for several years have been reading Recall. The Lawrence text I used was the second edition from around 2000, I believe, which is pretty old in medicine. Thank God they finally made a new one, but I doubt there's an overall improvement in the body of the text.

You might get more out of this book if you focus purely on it, take rigorous notes, review it again and again, etc. but it will be difficult to find time for this, and in the end, your thoughts on how to work up an upper GI bleed might just turn to mush.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars brief and readable, May 4, 2006

By 

surgworm - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essentials of General Surgery (Paperback)

This is an option for third year medical students who want a brief and readable review book in a prose rather than bullet point style. However it is by no means comprehensive and more in depth resources such as a surgery textbook should be utilized for presentations or for detailed investigation. It is suitable for the third year clerkship level.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for third year surgery clerkship, March 4, 2004

By 

Bergy - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essentials of General Surgery (Paperback)

This book is just the right length for an aspiring surgeon to read during their surgery clerkship. If surgery isn't your bag then it's probably a bit much but is excellent as a reference for your patient's surgical issues. When compared against many of the larger texts such as Sabiston it doesn't seem to be missing much of the important information that I needed to write review papers or add to informal presentations. But it is much cheaper and less bulky, and thus ideal for medical students. I used this book along with the "Essentials of Surgical Specialties" volume.