Customer Reviews

How to be a Truly Excellent Junior Medical Student

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Most Junior Medical Students (JMS's) feel intimidated when they begin their clinical year of medical school. You wanna learn how to cope up with this stress? Then buy this pocketbook !
Even though I bought it from Dalhousie University (Halifax) at the end of my junior clinical year, yet it was of great help to me later.

This pocketbook explores the world of the hospital, the role of each member, and how things are done in terms of writing notes, ordering tests, and performing procedures.

In Chapter 1, it introduces the JMS's to how a hospital works: (Outpatient vs. inpatient care, community vs. teaching hospitals, Private & staff patients, Nursing units & specialty services, Physician teams, Getting admitted to the hospital, Night calls, Ward routines from a patient's perspective).

Then the author talks in Chapter 2 about how to do stuff including reviewing a chart, writing orders, medications and prescriptions.

Chapter 3 teaches how to write notes (admission notes, internal medicine daily progress notes, discharge notes, notes for the Surgical care, Obstetrics, Pediatrics, Neurology and Psychiatry).

Chapter 4 focuses on procedures, in terms of preparation, introduction to phlebotomy & IV placement, performing venipuncture, taking blood culture, arterial blood gases, ECG, lumbar puncture, NG tube & Dobhoff placement, placing a urinary catheter, and local anesthesia.

Chapter 5 deals with bedside tests including urinalysis and Gram stain.

Finally Chapter 6 teaches JMS's how to organize their data and schedule, and to make a good presentation.

This pocketbook comes in 124 pages, published by Tarascon Press, in its 6th edition, 2001.

The only drawback I found is that chapter 3 is entirely duplicated twice, at least in my copy. Other than that, I strongly recommend this pocketbook for med students before commencing their clinical clerkships.

I am a med student in my clinical clerkship year and at first found it difficult to figure out what my role was as a Junior Medical Student. This book helps define your role in the hospital as well as everyone else's role. It also provides a framework for hospital protocol. I wish I would have had this book before my first rotation. After reading it I felt a lot more comfortable about what I am supposed to do. This book should be required reading before starting clerkships - you won't feel so lost and will make a better impression on hospital staff.

This book absolutely made hospital life clear to me in those terrifying first weeks of both my medical and my surgical clerkships. I think every single medical student should buy this book this second!

I did everything this book said, & still wasn't "excellent." That said, it's a good read, & worthwhile before getting to the wards.

This is an orientation to your 3rd year of medical school...and it fits in your pocket! I would definitely recommend it to any new MS3. Keep it in your pocket and refer to it when writing notes or performing daily tasks on the wards. The only problem I found with this book is that there are many grammar and spelling mistakes. Also the table of contents hasn't been updated to reflect current page numbers.

A bigger (and better) book that I also found VERY helpful is "The Nerd's Guide to Pre-rounding". This is definitely a book every MS3 should read.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521676754?ie=UTF8&tag=0213-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0521676754

Everyone knows carrying a book any bigger in size weighs down your white coat and only makes your back/shoulders hurt. This Tarascon title is compact and carries some great knowledge to use during your down time on rotations. It was always helpful to see tid bits about different procedures and how to perform them. It also has good advice on note writing in several different specialities.

My only con is that it is brief in many aspects. Leaving you to gain knowledge on your own.

I suggest it for a small pocket book during clinical rotations as a 3rd year MS.

They crammed as much as they could into this microscopic book. This book is fine if you like reading font the size of a grain of sand. The book is poorly organized, and really doesn't have that much useful info for a 3rd year starting clerkships. I would suggest First Aid for Clerkships if you really want to get a feel for things before starting 3rd year. You have enough crap to carry around in your white coat in your 3rd year and I can guarantee that this book will not be a priority for fitting into that white coat. Skip it and get a more useful book that you won't need a magnifying glass to read.

nothing at our center is conducive to the material in this, so depending on how things run at your school/hospital, this may be very helpful or totally useless. probably more like the latter since the author is pretty old school and practices are changing/advancing rapidly, esp with emr's.

This book really does not tell anything a 2nd year PA student or 3rd year medical student doesn't already know. Don't waste your time on this one. Tarascons other books; Primary Care, ER, and the Pharmacopia are descent toilet reading though.