Customer Reviews

General Surgery ABSITE and Board Review: Pearls of Wisdom, Fourth Edition

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

 

 

I purchased this book from a well known national board review company; there were no details about the book other than it was "Surgery Pearls", therefore I made no connection between the book I ordered and this book.

I was fooled! What arrived was this very book - the same book (albeit a newer edition) that a close friend purchased a few years ago to study for boards. The same book with so many factual errors (not to mention multiple spelling errors on each page) that we couldn't trust it and refused to study with it further. The errors were so glaring that I, as a junior surgery resident at the time, was even able to recognize them.

But hey...I thought perhaps the errors might have been fixed. Guess what? They haven't. Not only have the factual errors been repeated, so have the typographical errors. The latter are not errors of homonyms and the like, but actual editing errors which any $5 spell checker with medical terminology should have caught (although many of the errors are not medical terms in and of themselves, so that leaves me to believe that the typists and authors didn't proofread their work. Shame Shame).

The new edition attempts to "cover up" for the mistakes by claiming that there are many sources and many differences of opinion. That may be the case in regards to treatment but it is NOT with regard to anatomy and physiology questions or changes in certain lab values in disease.

Furthermore, it is quite clear that the "new" edition is simply a new cover. Many of the authors are listed as being from my former residency program. The trouble is most of them moved on to other hospitals or academic appointments, YEARS AGO, yet the updated information doesn't appear in the new edition. As a matter of fact, the name of the hospital that these authors are affilitated with changed 8 years ago, yet this edition (from 2006) still shows the pre-millenium name. If they can't even get their author's affiliations correct, what else am I supposed to trust?

Obviously Dr. Blecha and his buddy, the ER physician Dr. Brown didn't bother to check ANY of these things. But kudos to them...this edition is published by the well-known and respected McGraw Hill instead of the Boston Medical Publishing group responsible for the first two versions. Moving on up...

Clearly, I will be returning this book as it was not at all what I expected...these are not PEARLS but rather cheap plastic trinkets whose lustre immediately is lost when the front cover is opened.

I received this book for free and I still think it is nearly worthless. As a chief resident in surgery I found the book to be poorly organized with minimal use as a reference tool. The format was nice, but again, not a very useful text overall.

OK for quick study, locating key words. A few errors, in my opinion, as well as some controversial statements.

good book overall, November 2, 2008
By Mike Malowski - See all my reviews

I liked this book... it was quick to use.... covered a large base of topics. Plenty of exam topics are covered exactly as in this book.

This book is a good supplement, or last minute review for the ABSITE.