Saunders Manual of Medical Practice

This is an excellent book. You can look up any condition and it will give you the symptoms, diagnostic tests, and treatment options. F.eg. for gout, it will tell you about the condition, give you the work-up, and then how to determine which treatment to give to undersecreters vs. overproducers- all in 3-4 pages. You do not have to read it all to know what to do. You can just skip to the part that you are interested in for that particular patient. I used this book when I first got started in solo practice after residency and would not have been able to get through without it. I was in a small town 30 miles away from the nearest major hospital. This book is a must for anyone who does outpatient medicine, and it also helps with ER and inpatient conditions. I love my book - the old version. I was planning on getting a new one from the publisher. However, since the 2nd edition is from 2000, I think I will wait and see if there will be a new one this year.

I have read selected sections of this book in its 1st and 2nd editions and it is a good reference and study source in outline form, procedures are well described and clear. I also recommend Stobo's Review of Internal Medicine (authors are from Johns Hopkins) or Lange's Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment to go with the Saunders text or Cecil's Essentials of Medicine, texts in traditional manuscript.

This book is much more than a quick reference. If you are a Primary Care Physician, PA or NP buy this book, you will look like a genius to your peers. I review this text everytime I consider referring a patient to a specialist, when I do have to refer I have already done most of the ground work and only need the specialist to perform a diagnostic procedure like a colonoscopy with biopsy. I can't tell you how impressed my co-workers are with my level of knowledge. I keep telling them where I learned the information but most of them just think I'm super intelligent and aske me to consult on their cases.

This is an excellent quick reference for primary care which would be beneficial to residents and attending physicians alike. It gives quick summaries of most illnesses.

My best friend rates this text as extremely useful for family practice.