Customer Reviews

First Aid for the Surgery Clerkship (First Aid Series)

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

 

 

At least half this book is exactly the same as First Aid for the Medicine Clerkship, but it does a good job of describing pathophysiology, differential diagnosis, and surgical management of issues. It's helpful that it includes chapters on the various surgical subspecialties.

I wouldn't say that it is particularly high yield because it's over 500 pages. It would be the most helpful to someone who hasn't already had their medicine clerkship.

The book (and others in the series I have used) is quite good, with clear, well-summarized material. There are a few caveats, however:
1. In this 1st edition, there are many typos. Most are obvious (mispelling, repeating a word or phrase or phrase twice in a row, etc.), but betray a lack of proofreading. I THINK all the important information is accurate, but the typos don't inspire confidence...
2. The font size is big, the line spacing generous, and there's lots of white space on the pages, which makes for easy reading, but as a result it's not a small book. It would be nice if some of the font sizing/line spacing were sacrificed for a more pocketable book that might fit in a white coat, like the "Recall" series. (The "Recall" series has its hits and misses, but Surgical Recall is a must-have book for the surgery rotation. Really. It goes very well with First Aid or the similar "Blueprints.")
3. The "Blueprints" series is very similar to this "First Aid" series, with the addition of a test prep. question/answer section in the back. It would be nice if First Aid had SOME sort of review mechanism--maybe Q/A's at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book.

Overall, it's a good series, even with my "gripes."

Fairly comprehensive information, very list-heavy, but not always organized in a logical way. Some of this lists seem more like a slew of random facts related to the topic, rather than a systematic description, diagnosis, and treatment-style organization. Mostly useful as a place to take notes from other texts, but even then, not always the best because of the odd organization.

It's a lot of help while you're going through your surgery rotation. As much as I would have liked to have read the text book, there isn't a lot of time due to the long hours of work. This book helps fill in the gaps. Some things might be too simplified, so it might be helpful to supplement with the required books.

What I love about this text is the comprehensiveness. It has something for all the surg specialties and does a pretty decent job at capturing the most important information. It's full of eponymous that will impress your residents/attendings and facts that will help you on the shelf. I was able to get through the entire text and do the uworld surg questions and ended up with a 97 on the shelf. This is the ideal resource for outline learners. If you thrive on vignettes then look elsewhere. I can't stand case files.

The only info it lacks is peds ortho, which is actually very high yield on the shelf. The fluids/electrolytes/nutrition section is on the weak side. The trauma chapter could use improvement as well. The appendix chapter lacks the Alvarado scoring system.

The formatting that is used in the kindle version is terrible; please don't waste your money, because the book ends up being more confusing than helpful. I can't comment on content, because I've given up reading it on the kindle after about thirty pages.

This book is great as far as teaching what you need to know for the surgery clerkship. Its only fault is being so long, but there is a lot of wasted space on each page as well. Typical first aid series book. Worth the money if you want to do well in surgery.

I have not taken the shelf yet but this review book seems a little too general for the purpose of preparing for pimping on the wards or in the OR. There is some solid information and everything is presented in a clear, easy to read way with First Aid's trademark boxes in the margins with helpful hints. This is my 2nd time using this series (1st was with psych) and I'm thinking bc this discipline is so much more general you definitely need more texts. I definitely wouldn't say I regret buying but just keep in mind that you may need Lawrence's Essentials or some other reference to read chapters pertaining to the specialty service you will be on.

This book requires etensive reformatting to be useful on the Kindle. As it is currently formatted, sections are broken up with countless asides which are only tangentially related to the topic. In print, these notes are boxes in the page margins, but on the Kindle they are distracting interjections. the figures also need to be reformatted for legibility and size. I love my kindle for reading novels, but this is a good example of the kinds of content which suffers greatly in the move from print to ebook. This could have been much better with a little effort from the publisher.

takes awhile to get through, but quite comprehensive. The first 300 pages are what you actually have to know, the last 200 pages are only somewhat needed. I supplemented this book with nms casebook, surgery pretest, and lange 1000 surgery questions. Out of these I would say definitely get nms, probably yes to first aide. I gave it 4/5 stars because I have yet to take the shelf. But so far so good, just study these and keep recall handy for reading before surgery cases for pimping.