Surgery Casebook

A surgical intern recommended this book to me 4 weeks into my surgery rotation. I'm so glad I listed to her and bought this book. No idea how I would have gotten through the surgery shelf without it! It is a relatively quick read, and the format is conducive to making the material stick in your head. I used this along with the Pestana review and I did well on my surgery shelf, even though it was my first rotation, and I had not had medicine yet. Even though the majority of my classmates used Case Files (and I tried it for awhile, too), I would highly recommed NMS casebook over Case Files for surgery.

I used five different review books on my clerkship and this was by far my favorite. Compared to Case Files, there are more topics and the format was definitely better.

I really like this book. The book is presented in a case-based question/answer format. The book is written in narrative form (no bullets, or choppy info). I like the design of the book and it's easy to read and understand. The cases presented are classic and in-depth. It's a long read though, and may be too much for boards when its crunch time. I used it mostly for reference and when I didn't understand something when I was studying for Step 2. It's a great book for 3rd year surgery rotation and the shelf exam. Good luck!!

I just finished my surgery rotation and took the shelf exam. I have to say that reading this book really prepared me for the shelf and also for the whole surgery rotation. I highly recommend this book. You may also want to have a question book such as pre-test surgery to do some practice questions. Good luck in surgery.

This is as near perfect a surgery review text as you can find that will prepare you for both your third year surgery clerkship and NBME surgery subject exam and Step 2. This book is very quick reading and is FULL of tons of great diagrams, charts, CT, X-rays, U/S, angiograms, etc. It's written in a clinical cases format with specific and pertinent management questions and solutions, as well as differentials and diagnosing discussions, that will prepare you clinically for the wards, as well as prepare you for shelf exams (which contain a lot of patient management questions, many of which were discussed in this book). It also has enough anatomy and pathophysiology discussion for it to be useful as a source for background reading for surgeries you are planning on scrubbing in on. The radiographic images are especially useful, however, it would have been useful to have more diagnostic findings specifically labelled on many of the images. Most importantly, this is a book that you can realistically expect to finish and even master within the timeframe of your 8-12 week clerkship. Highly recommended.