Customer Reviews

Robbins & Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease: With STUDENT CONSULT Online Access, 8e (Robbins Pathology)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There is no doubt majority of medical students throughout the world use this book. And I do think it is very informative. But you must be willing to spend a lot of time reading it, especially if this is the only book you plan on using in pathology. Because it takes a lot of time to comb through the huge amount of info in this book to pick out what is important for medical students to remember. So I would recommend most medical students to also buy Rapid Review Pathology: With STUDENT CONSULT Online Access because it is much more clinically oriented and also gives you the pathophysiology behind the symptoms which Robbins does not. I also feel that though Robbins does a good job mentioning the symptoms in a concise manner, it could do a lot better integrating the symptoms with the pathology. So I would use this book as a reference book in the truest sense. Meaning I would get a brief idea of the topic from Rapid Review or some other source and then read Robbins if you have time. But for certain things you will probably have to go directly to Robbins. For example, Robbins does a great job with the morphology, which is some what lacking in most review books like Rapid Review and BRS. I would buy the book only if you have a good amount of time to learn the subject or just really like pathology. But i would NOT buy it if you are
1. looking for a quick review, ie before step 1 (because really most of info in this book wont help there)
2. if you dont have a lot of time to focus solely on pathology and this book. Because as I said it will take time for you to read through all the info and pick out important points that you need to learn. And on top of that to be able to do this, you will first have to get use to the writing style of this book which is very different. (often study based)
As for difference between 7th and 8th editions. I personally dont think there is that much of a difference. The authors mention extensively redoing the first chapter and third. But other than that I think its mostly reorganizing and making it look more pleasing. ie cut from here and paste there. So I dont think its worth buying 8th if you have the 7th. And if you are really tight on cash I would buy the 7th. I really don't think they have changed the info at all specially in systemic pathology.

I read many good reviews about this book before purchasing it, yet I was somewhat skeptical, thinking that it will probably be shelved and used occasionally as a reference book. I must admit that I was quite wrong. When I started reading it, I just could not stop. This is an engaging, well written, well illustrated and well referenced work dealing with a subject that is essential for many health care/medical practitioners and students. I never thought that a pathology book could be fun to read, but this book has changed my mind.

This book has everything it takes to be considered a really good book. Though the text is quite dense, you can easily understand it. The topics are thoroughly explained, and there is always a good scheme to help understand them. Overall a very good pathology book, which I'm happy to have.

Robbins and Cotran's book is quite dense, and goes into more detail than may be necessary in the preclinical years. By the same token, it paints a clear and comprehensive picture of each pathology, so that reading it would leave any student with a great command in each topic for the boards. Blue boxes with key morphological findings concisely illuminate the pathology's major findings. As pathology ties together most of the other preclinical areas of study, this book probably deserves a place in each student's armamentarium.

The new edition of Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease confirms the expectancy of an authoritative compendium. In particular, this new edition updates nicely the molecular and cellular basis of diseases in the general pathology section, maintaining the usual concise and precise style.

This is just an updated version of the good old Robbins I have been using for years and trust. I haven't used another path book but I have no desire to try anything else as it's the only book that has proven itself.

Pretty good book, especially for the price. The information is interesting enough to sit down and read a section when interested in a disease, but the book doesn't provide too much information to be overwhelming to a student. I am very glad that I purchased this book as it has been very helpful in my pathology courses.

Great book and a must for medical pathology. It goes into a lot of detail, which is very helpful when you are initially trying to understand the material. It is also a great resource to use as a reference textbook following medical school.

An excellent resource for anyone studying Pathology. An on-line version available with this book makes searching much easier than having to thumb through the pages.

I attend a foreign medical school that follows an accelerated curriculum. There simply is not enough time to read this dull, dense, poorly written book. I much prefer the Lippincott illustrated series of books. Unfortunately, I have an old school professor that insists we read Robbins from cover to cover, and he tests the most obscure, minute details. It is what it is. If you don't have to read this book, then don't. Buy BRS Pathology and Goljian Rapid Review instead. Your money and time will be much better spent towards achieving a superior USMLE Step 1 score.

Just to expand a little further, I intensely dislike this book. More than any other book I've had to read in college, business school, or med school. Maybe intense dislike is too mild to truly describe how I feel about this book. In fact, I dislike this book so much that I am not even going to resell this book. I am literally going to throw Robbins into the ocean once my final exams are over. No one should be forced to read this book in the year 2012. There are much better ways to learn pathology than slogging through Robbins. You can see that this book bothers me so much that I actually bothered to write a review about it.