Customer Reviews

Medical Genetics at a Glance

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

 

 

As an older medical student with some distance between me and my biology courses in college, I found this book extremely helpful in understanding medical genetics. Unfortunately, I didn't find it until after USMLE Step 1, but it would have been fantastic as a review tool to augment the sparse information that most Step 1 review books include on genetics. I can see it being an excellent companion to a medical or graduate school course in genetics, especially for those of us who never read the massive textbooks cover to cover....

This book included useful details that many review-style books fail to include, and the numerous pictures accompanying detailed, generally narrative-style text made for good reinforcement of facts and helped with memorization.

Things I found particularly useful --

Part I is devoted to developmental biology, and includes basic cell biology and embryology -- in about 30 pages. This was a great reference to have as I carried this book around on its own.

More information than the usual review-text on things like twin studies, genetic linkage, and gene mapping.

Excellent section on immunogenetics, covering the complicated rearrangements responsible for immunoglobulin diversity that are usually left to an immunology course, where the genetics aspects are poorly explained. This book helps you to synthesize the information you may have had presented in several different courses here, and presents things quite clearly and succinctly.

An entire Part devoted to clinical applications of genetics -- with individual sections that are nice and short, so while topics are well-described, they are not beaten into the ground, and you won't mind reading the whole thing!

Overall -- I wish I'd had this book sooner! It painlessly explains a lot of topics that I never quite got in my courses, and includes many diagrams that help with understanding AND memorization. It may lack the heavy clinical detail you might want in a reference for the wards as a medical student, but it's an excellent tool for the first two years, and for basic science review later.

I used this book for my PhD qualifying exam studying and enjoyed the easy to reference and learn approach.

This is an excellent review of a complicated subject. I found the book very accessible with multilevel headings, making it easy to find desired information. Generous use of pictures and diagrams makes the material easy to read and remember. The breadth of this book is impressive for a review. I liked the use of case histories at the end, although I wish there were more cases. Great for first year genetics, or for step 1 board review. I will continue to use this book as a reference when I need a quick refresher of a genetics topic.

At my medical school we had a separate class for genetics. I never took an undergrad course in this area so I wanted a good overview of things before the class started. This book was a good general resource. It actually ended up being more useful as a reference during class because it gave a really succinct summary of more detailed processes and allowed me to see the bigger picture. I'm going to keep this to review for USMLE.