Customer Reviews

Evidence-Based Physical Diagnosis, 2e

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been a physician for 20 years, but still had some areas of uncertainty regarding the physical exam. This book reassured me that I wasn't deficient for omitting certain maneuvers (e.g. percussion for liver span which apparently has poor reproducibility and only "modest" correlation with imaging studies) and also let me know which of the numerous options for physical diagnosis have the highest sensitivity and specificity. Some particularly helpful chapters include those on examination of the thyroid, abdomen, and lymph nodes, but each chapter has numerous pearls, all well-referenced. There is an especially thorough review of the cardiovascular exam. One thing that makes this book so refreshing is that nothing is given a pass based on longstanding inclusion in clinical teaching. If there were data out there to support or refute the utility of a physical exam finding, the author found and analyzed them. The book is very well written and frankly entertaining. When was the last time you heard anybody say THAT about a physical diagnosis book. I bought this at an out of town meeting and read most of it before I even got home. It's pricey for a paperback, but absolutely packed with useful, practical information. It's worth the price.

I used many books for Physical exam, but during my first year residency I found out about this book. I love this book it is evidence based and tell you what to look for in PE. I recommend this book to all residents.

I already own a number of physical assessment books so I was resisting buying this one until I went to my hospital library and picked the first edition off the shelf. Half hour later I decided to buy the second edition through Amazon. I wouldn't recommend it as a first level physical assessment book, but once you've learned general physical assessment skills this is a great book to own if you're studying or attempting to improve your skills in physical diagnosis. It has helped me to focus some of my assessment skills in critical care nursing as well as in advanced practice nursing outside of critical care. I also refer to it frequently in preparing physical assessment classes to critical care nurses. My husband, a professor of medicine, gives it five stars as well!

I love the physical exam and I had originally been looking for a book that would tell me about exam techniques that I had never heard of to add diagnostic tools to my arsenal. This book does that a little, but I found what it does the best is actually more useful than what I had been looking for. This book evaluates the physical exam by diagnoses (Anemia, cirrhosis, etc...) and discusses the technique very briefly (it assumes the reader knows the techniques) and provides the likelihood ratios for for each exam component based on studies that have been done and statistics derived from those studies. I still want to know about new exam techniques, but realistically they have probably not been studied, and having data to support physical exam findings, like this book provides, will have practical clinical value and could reduce the number of tests I order for patients. It is worth noting that the actual value of different exam techniques for many conditions is surprising. One criticism of this book is that it is not especially user-friendly to navigate. The index has yet to have a term that I wanted to search by and I've had to discover the location of information just by reading it from cover to cover.

The other book I had seriously considered purchasing was "The Rational Clinical Examination." This is another excellent book, and I was torn. Sizewise, EBPD is dense book without pictures in the general shape of a novel. Data heavy. Slightly too big for a pocket. TRCE is the size of a text book with lots of color photos and, in my opinion, lots of wasted space with graphics that are reminiscent of a college sociology class. Soft cover and floppy. Feels a lot like a text book to page through it, too big to even carry around, especially given how floppy it is. Floppier than a phone book. This looks at the actual meta-analyses and studies that were done to evaluate the physical exam techniques, so you can decide for yourself if the studies are good. It does look at the kappa value of tests, an informative element that tells us if doctors generally agree that a finding is present or absent in any given patient. It spends more time on exam technique- which is something I miss in EBPD. Truth be told, most of our failings in our physical diagnoses are because we don't actually do the exam technique appropriately and different physicians can't even agree if a finding is present as a result (example: JVD). However, TRCE is essentially a collection of the papers from the Rational Clinical Exam series by JAMA and if you have access to pubmed, you can pretty much get these studies without buying the book, and there are frequent updates to the papers which I feared would make the book obsolete in painfully short order.

This is a fantastic book! With research data and clear explanations it will get you to understand the reasons for each procedure, helping making hypothesis and choosing the right diagnosis based on evidence, however it's for people wiht previous knowledge on physical examination,if you are to learn it, you should probably get another textbook, read it first, attend to classes and then read this one, might really help!

You no longer have to rely on what your professor told you, just because he told you. Many "Facts" are dispelled and others proven, but with evidence, not opinion. Experience of academic providers is of course helpful, but evidence is more satisfying in actual patient care. Some surprises in long-held "traditional teachings"

One word. AMAZING. This book is very helpful for a medical student. A great number of my residents and interns have been asking to read information from it. This book should be recommended for ALL physicians. The tables are good. It breaks down evidence based medicine, and gives PROOF instead of hoopla, with little historical tidbits as well, such as who was Shamroth from the famous Shamroth sign of clubbing. A great buy!

A Medicine attending at my school had it. He was excellent, so I got it. I've thumbed through this book, but have not read cover to cover, however, when I look at it or read a bit, it is excellent! I need to get through this book, even if 5 pages at a time!

If you are looking for a book to fine tune your physical assessment skills, this is a great place to start. It is evidence based, fairly easy to follow and synthesize, and fairly easy to apply to your medical practice. The author has done a wonderful job with this book and it is a must read. It is complete with a description of the sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios for the physical assessment findings that either include or exclude a condition and includes many methods of assessment that are not commonly known/utilized.

Dear all,
The book is amazing and the price was very good!
The delivery service, even being in Brazil, was very fast!
Congrats! I recommend for everyone!
That's all folks!