Customer Reviews

Rapid Review Microbiology and Immunology

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
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This book is great. It covers everything you need to know for step 1, while leaving out all you dont' need to know. The questions are probably the best micro vignette questions out there, and helps reinforce what you learned from the book.
This book is much better than micro made ridiculously simple in terms of boards review. Its written in outline format so you can get through it much faster, and it includes an immunology section that has all you need to know for the immunology questions on the step.

The only thing I don't like is the Rapid Review format. At times the outline format should be written in complete sentences (like the high-yield series) to avoid confusing statments/facts. For me, this seemed especially true in the immunology section, which can be confusing if you have a weak immuno background.

Other than that, this is a great review book. The only review book for micro in my opinion.

I am a big fan of the Rapid Review series. The Pathology version by Goljan, as far as I'm concerned, is just as essential as First Aid when it comes to reviewing for class and Step 1. However, Microbiology and Immunology are what I would consider two of the most important topics covered on Step 1 along with pathology, pharmacology, and neuroscience. This book has some good review material in it, but is far from comprehensive. Many topics are discussed extremely briefly or omitted entirely. I could only recommend this book for someone who has Microbiology and Immunology down very well and just needs a super quick refresher. To be honest, First Aid does a better job of covering this material.

*** This review is regarding the content of the book only. I do own this book, but I have not accessed the Student Consult online material. Although I have accessed it for the pathology book in this series. From that material I have deduced that it can't make that big of a difference; but I could very easily be wrong.

Perfect for medical microbio class. I used Micro Made easy for class, and after reading this book to review for the boards I would definately recommend it over Micro made easy. The organization is better, it's a shorter text, has an outline format, has excellent tables that while are not as detailed as the micro made easy book are a lot easier to read, and it has everything you need to know for class, which micro made easy does not.

Immuno section is a bit brief but it has all the essentials. I would also recommend reading Immunobiology by Janeway and Medical Microbiology by Murray. Both texts are outstanding and really help you appreciate the subjects.

My immunology course was unbearable and poorly taught. I used this book to get through the first part the course. There aren't really that many pages dedicated to immunology, but those that are were really succinct. I didn't do as well as I would have liked on the exam, but I attribute that to my teacher being certifiably crazy and not to the clarity of material presented in this book. Can't really comment on micro because I haven't had that course yet.

This book is a good review in bullet-point format, but it's missing crucial pictures of conditions such as impetigo, erysipelas, and common rashes found in infections such as measles and mumps. There are verbal descriptions of the conditions, but being able to recognize these conditions in a picture is essential for the boards. I recommend Microbiology by Harvey to supplement or replace Microbiology and Immunology Rapid Review.

This book is very well organized, has great charts, and does a good job of parsing down to the most necessary material. One especially good component is the studentconsult.com part, which I didn't even know or care about when I purchased it. On the website, you can go to the "extras" section after you register the book and take practice questions based on information in any of the chapters or topics you'd like to study. The platform it uses is identical to USMLEWorld, and the questions were perfect difficulty in preparing for my exam.