BudapestStudent.com
Books for the 3rd year medicine
As with all my other recommendations, they are just that - recommendations.
Some people like diagrams, some like lots of colors. And some just like cheap books with nothing but text.
The third year is your first clinical year.
It is now time to take out your stetoscope and talk to actual patients!
You will also have Microbiology, Pathology, and Pathophysiology. These three classes are extremely important for your clinical training! The better you understand the material, the better foundation you will have for the 4th and 5th year (and practicing medicine as a physician).
Here are my recommendations.
Internal Medicine
For the first semester, you will learn two basic things:
- Taking the patient history
- Physical examination of the patient
For this you will need Bickley: Bates' Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking.
You will have Internal Medicine from the 3rd year to the end of your education at Semmelweis Medical University.
I have written an overview of the entire Internal Medicine course. It is important that you read this to understand what books you will need and that there is no such thing as "the Internal Medicine book" - ever.
Read my recommendations for Internal Medicine here.
But for the first semester, just get this book!
Pathology
There are two Departments of Pathology. Check out a comment on that here.
Depending on your department, there are two official books:
Robbins and Cotran's Pathological Basis of Disease is the book recommended by the 1st Department of Pathology.
Rubin's Pathology is the book recommended by the 2nd Department of Pathology.
My teacher in Pathology, Professor Matolcsy of the 1st Department of Pathology, recommended that we get the Robbins and Cotran's Basic Pathology instead of the biggest edition. It is a gem! I used it all the time and it is my first recommendation, but you can get any of these books and you'll be fine.
I also own the large edition Rubin's Pathology, but I hardly ever used it compared to the Robbins and Cotran's Basic Pathology!
Pathology is an awesome subject. You will learn about all kinds of diseases and discuss them in the autopsy room and during histopathology.
I didn't buy a book for the histopathology part of the subject. What you need is covered in class.
The books above are the largest editions of Rubin's and Robbins, respectively.
The books below are the smaller editions.
Pathophysiology
There are a few books out there for Pathophysiology, but I recommend that you use all the other books you have this semester to look up whatever you need for this course. Almost everything you'll need is covered during lab and lecture.
For the first semester, you will need to get a good book for Electrocardiography (ECG, sometimes written EKG).
For the second semester, I recommend that you get a good book for hematology, because you need to know it well for the final exam (and it is also useful to have a hematology book when studying hematology for Pathology!)
For ECG I recommend The Only EKG Book You'll Ever Need. It delivers!
For hematology I recommend Hoffbrand et al.: Essential Haematology. It is a really good book!
I also got the Thieme-series book on hematology and that is nice, too. But I prefer Hoffbrand et al.
Microbiology
Personally, I got two books for this course:
Murray at al.: Medical Microbiology and Jawetz et al.: Medical Microbiology (LANGE).
Both of the books are good and either one will cover everything you need. I found the Jawetz et al.: Medical Microbiology (LANGE) to be a bit more detailed and thus covered more than Murray et al.: Medical Microbiology, but Murray et al.: Medical Microbiology has a very good layout (it has color pictures, color-coded sections, while Jawetz et al.: Medical Microbiology (LANGE) is black/white with almost only text).
I also recommend Clinical Microbiology Made Rediculously Simple.
This book is almost too simple sometimes, but it covers the basic material in an amusing and colorful way. Easy to remember.
It is very important to understand that the material covered in lab is not found in a particular book. This includes techniques such as staining, differential diagnosis using chemicals etc.
Therefore, you need to make good notes, because the sooner you understand the clinical relevance of this course, the better you will be at implementing this in internal medicine (and basically every clinical course in the 4th and 5th year).
Psychology
Personally I didn't use any books for this course. There is a book, which is recommended by the Department, but few of my friends bought it and hardly anyone used it. It's up to you.
Ethics/Sociology
You are told to buy the Medical Ethics book, but it is very expensive (given the fact that you'll have ethics for half a semester and only use the book now and then). I suggest trying to borrow one or make copies of what you need.
The same goes for Sociology.
Pharmacology
You will have one semester of Pharmacology in the 3rd year (the Spring semester).
This semester will cover Antibiotics and Autonomic Nervous System (unless they've changed it!).
Update July 2007 - They changed the curriculum for the Pharmacology in the 3rd year.
This will not affect which books to buy, though!
For this course, the Department recommends Katzung, Basic and Clinical Pharmacology, but Katzung has mostly text. It is very detailed and contains 'everything', but most students prefer the excellent layout and use of diagrams and colors in Rang et al. Pharmacology. I have both the books, along with Lippincott's Pharmacology. This is a much smaller book, but has a very good overview and the book is perfect for bringing to class.
I have all four books, but I believe the best combination of books is Katzung, Basic and Clinical Pharmacology and Lippincott's Pharmacology. This will be enough for both the 3rd year and the entire 4th year. You will have a comprehensive final at the end of the 4th year (so a total of three semesters of Pharmacology).
The final exam is tough, so make sure you have good study material for this course.
Most students I have talked to in Norway (University of Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø and Trondheim) use Rang et al. Pharmacology.
I strongly suggest using Katzung, Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at Semmelweis University, because the teachers use this.
Update on Pharmacology (July 2007) - many of my friends have said they used Katzung, Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (the LANGE book above). It is the one that correlates most closely to what the department recommends.
As with all my recommendations - go to a bookstore and look through the books. See what appeals to you. It doesn't matter if the book 'has everything' if you hate reading it!