Customer Reviews

Pathology

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

 

 

I thought that this book was pretty good, although it may not be written for a medical student as much as a path resident. Excellent pictures, and good descriptions. I felt that the skin, kidney, and bone section were weak and wordy, but the blood, GI, cardiac, and neuro sections were well put together. I have not read robbins, although I think the general consensus is that is the book to use. The bottom line is I liked this book, and felt that I got a good pathology education from it.

I read through some of the reviews and felt compelled to write one. The reviews do not give this book credit. It is truly a great book. For someone who wants to know more information than is required this is the book for you (and this should be any medical student). That is why this book is recommened by more pathologists than the Robbins text, which does not go into much detail. If you ask around, this is the book that pathologists recommend because it is so integrative; explaining many more topics in detail than any other textbook. And just so the readers know, there are no required books in medical school, only recommended books. No matter where you go, you have the right to choose whatever book you feel will help you the most. So from someone who did use the book, and did extremely well in pathology (member of the pathology national honor society), this book provides a great way to learn pathology for a highly motivated student who truly wants to learn pathology.

If I didn't know better I'd say that this was little more than a collection of drafts. I was truely surprised by how disorganized and inconsistant this book is. I found several mistakes and the text meanders and is so verbose that the information is inaccessible. Simple concepts are made cloudy and more complex concepts such as immunology or the clotting cascade are utterly indecipherable. The graphics are adequate at best but the vast majority of micrographs lack any arrows pointing out histologic features - a necessity for any teaching text. Also of note is a lack of continuity between chapters. It seems that each chapter was written without any common guidelines. Similarly, it is very evident that the text was not edited for content or accuracy by the editors, Rubin and Farber. Factual errors are very common and this is inexcusable for a book of this price. On a secondary note, the paper it is printed on is so thin that highlighters bleed right through to the next page. Any student of pathology would NOT be served well by this text. I would not even consider recommending this book until it undergoes a cover-to-cover re-write. Shame on Lippincott, an otherwise respectable publisher, for releasing such a sub-standard book! Virtualy every other pathology text I have seen is a vast improvement over this one. In particular, Robbins' Pathologic Basis of Disease is an exemplary text and illustrates how things SHOULD be done.

This is one of the poorer examples of a medical textbook that I have yet encountered. It is poorly organized and lacks helpful formatting. Even after a cursory review I found it riddled with inaccuracies and errors. There were several contradictions between chapters and even within chapters! It is exceedingly verbose and vague and filled with poor grammar, such as double negatives. If you really want a good path text, Robbins is light years beyond Rubin & Farber in both form and substance.

How come all one-star-rating reviews seem written by one same guy? You hate your professor, but please do it in other ways. Don't confuse readers online.

Some of the chapters (e.g. Kidney) could be a little less wordy and more organized.

If you have any interest in learning pathology this is NOT the book to choose. As a medical student who is forced to use it I can speak from experience and say that it is possibly the worst text I have ever encountered. We are forced to use it since the editors are at my school. However, virtually every lecturer we have had points out all the errors and contradictions in the book and then refers us to other texts for better information. The writing is also extrememly uneven and there is virtually no integration of information between chapters. Every chapter seems to be like an entirely different book. Also of note is the distinct lack of gross images. For example, the skin chapter has many histologic images but only TWO gross images. Contrast this with the Robbins Pathology text whch has a histologic image AND the corresponding gross image next to it. So, if you have any interest in learning pathology I would STRONGLY advise staying away from this book and selecting Robbin's Pathologic Basis of Disease. That is the book recommended my most of our professors and with good reason. There is a reason over 80% of all medical schools use Robbins and only about a dozen use Rubin and Farber.