This is my review of the book “The Ultimate Emergency Medicine Guide” by Dr. Khan. I was offered this opportunity a few months ago when the forum user msgsk made a thread offering a free copy of the book in return for a review.
Background info: I am an EM intern, about 3 weeks into residency, so haven’t made it through rosen’s or tintinalli’s, or taken an inservice exam yet.
So my initial impressions of the book were skeptical. To be blunt, this is not a “high production value” book. Flipping through the pages, it looks like it was made in word document. It’s about 300 pgs long, and has a fair amount of white space, so it substantially less dense than other board review books.
Reading through the book, I found it to be surprisingly dense with information. I believe the reason why this is the case is because it takes away a lot of the “fluff” that other books have, most EM docs either know by heart by now, or can look up easily. These include things like ACLS algorithms, GCS score, basic EKG interpretation, etc. This books skips straight to the pathology, specifically to the unusual or more difficult pathology. Also, this book is geared towards preparing the reader for exams, and doesn’t go through a lot of the day to day patient care tips. In contrast to this book, I am currently reading "First Aid for the EM Boards", which I am finding really tedious, and takes much more text to arrive at the same point. I am about a third of the way through "First Aid", and I have not found anything that I didn't know previously, or wasn't covered in Dr. Khan's book.
The book comes pre-highlighted, which is useful. Also, there are interspersed multiple choice questions, which help break up the text. The format of the text is outline form, which personally I prefer. There are many pictures as well, which are all very useful, but some can be grainy looking or low quality. There is also a 75 question practice test at the end of the book, with answers and explanations as well.
There is also a fair amount of humor in the book, some of which is cheesy, some of which is pretty funny. However, I never found it to be distracting.
As I have never taken the boards or inservice exams, I can’t speak to how high yield the information is. However, from reading this book, I really do feel better prepared for residency.
Personally, the most useful chapters were the tox and ortho chapters, which cover a lot of different topics is a small amount of space. In fact, I have already been pimped on a few obscure facts that I only knew because of this book! (one was delayed labial bleed from child chewing on electrical cord)
Price on amazon currently is $62, which I find to be pretty reasonable.
All in all, I would give this book 5/5 stars, and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for an easy-to-read supplemental book in preparation for boards. It’s not super pretty, but it does everything it sets out to accomplish. If anybody has any questions, I would be happy to answer them here. Also, thanks to msgsk for the opportunity!
Edited to add: apparantly the final version now has 100 questions at the end instead of the 75.
Background info: I am an EM intern, about 3 weeks into residency, so haven’t made it through rosen’s or tintinalli’s, or taken an inservice exam yet.
So my initial impressions of the book were skeptical. To be blunt, this is not a “high production value” book. Flipping through the pages, it looks like it was made in word document. It’s about 300 pgs long, and has a fair amount of white space, so it substantially less dense than other board review books.
Reading through the book, I found it to be surprisingly dense with information. I believe the reason why this is the case is because it takes away a lot of the “fluff” that other books have, most EM docs either know by heart by now, or can look up easily. These include things like ACLS algorithms, GCS score, basic EKG interpretation, etc. This books skips straight to the pathology, specifically to the unusual or more difficult pathology. Also, this book is geared towards preparing the reader for exams, and doesn’t go through a lot of the day to day patient care tips. In contrast to this book, I am currently reading "First Aid for the EM Boards", which I am finding really tedious, and takes much more text to arrive at the same point. I am about a third of the way through "First Aid", and I have not found anything that I didn't know previously, or wasn't covered in Dr. Khan's book.
The book comes pre-highlighted, which is useful. Also, there are interspersed multiple choice questions, which help break up the text. The format of the text is outline form, which personally I prefer. There are many pictures as well, which are all very useful, but some can be grainy looking or low quality. There is also a 75 question practice test at the end of the book, with answers and explanations as well.
There is also a fair amount of humor in the book, some of which is cheesy, some of which is pretty funny. However, I never found it to be distracting.
As I have never taken the boards or inservice exams, I can’t speak to how high yield the information is. However, from reading this book, I really do feel better prepared for residency.
Personally, the most useful chapters were the tox and ortho chapters, which cover a lot of different topics is a small amount of space. In fact, I have already been pimped on a few obscure facts that I only knew because of this book! (one was delayed labial bleed from child chewing on electrical cord)
Price on amazon currently is $62, which I find to be pretty reasonable.
All in all, I would give this book 5/5 stars, and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for an easy-to-read supplemental book in preparation for boards. It’s not super pretty, but it does everything it sets out to accomplish. If anybody has any questions, I would be happy to answer them here. Also, thanks to msgsk for the opportunity!
Edited to add: apparantly the final version now has 100 questions at the end instead of the 75.
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