Embryology

[gabloammar]

Hi guys! Just joined the forum. [Glad! ] [please don't mind the long read]

We have this huge problem in that we have to know all our embryology. Not the genetic/molecular biology stuff, but the rest of the processes going on.

Our professor uses Moore, and he's an old man so he's been teaching the subject for quite a few years now so it's easy for him [at least I think so, nonetheless he's a good teacher].

I on the other hand, think it's a hard book to study from. As much as I love detail, [I don't mind studying from Moore to be honest but I keep forgetting, can't seem to rote learn] I wanted a change of book.

I got BRS and HY, but as I said at the beginning, we need to know all the processes going on. Got Langman's Embryology, but that book is simply, convoluted.

Now I've got one last book as an option, Larsen's Embryology, but I don't know if it's any good or not. I can't seem to find any preview on the internet and so I turn to you. Should I get it?

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[gabloammar]

No help?

Am I doomed?

Because I don't wanna waste a lot of money by buying a book that I don't need [it'll be my most expensive book if I do get it].

 

[alamo4]

Our class was taught by developmental biologists, so had a lot of stuff from books by Gilbert and Wolpert, which are pretty hardcore molecular and cross organism.

I actually just searched the web, using things like Wikipedia a lot to understand some of the core biology of embryology, mostly to fill out Langman's with more detail and to make it more clear.

There are also some videos around that help make key processes more clear, for example, this one on gut formation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2cNCUL1r3A

 

[gabloammar]

Thanks for the reply, but I'm basically studying the exact opposite way in that sense. No crossovers, and no molecular stuff, at all.

But the rest of the things, all of them, in as much as detail as Moore and Persaud.

That's why I'm asking if Larsen's Embryology has at least about 85% of the stuff in Moore and it's written in an easy way or not.

 

[2012Aggie]

Larsen's is terrible! I used nothing but my prof's lectures plus the high yield book and scored in the 99th percentile nationally on the NBME. It may not be useful for your class, but the NBME only asks about the really clinically relevant stuff.

 

[gabloammar]

Aha, but that's where the problem lies for me. I'm in Pakistan, and they don't ask clinical questions like that [or else BRS is an amazing book considering it has more clinical correlates than the actual embryological processes].

We get tested on those embryological processes, and that's why I need a good book [if it's out there somewhere, I'm putting the last of my hopes on Larsen's] so that the processes are easy to understand.

Why didn't you like the book [apart from the fact that it wasn't high-yield for you]? Is it really hard to understand? [Langman, is hard to understand]

Thanks for replying!

 

[2012Aggie]

That's rough. Embryology can be a really hard subject if you have to know more than the clinical buzz words. The reason I didn't like Larsens is because it isn't written from a clinical perspective, so perhaps that's a good thing for you. I just found it really dense and full of unnecessary detail (at least for a medical student).

 

[gabloammar]

It IS hard, and kinda rough too. Though I suppose you get used to it in a way. Our education system is flawed [I mean you study all that embryology the whole year along with gross and histology and yet you only get one, ONE, question in the final board exam, out of like twelve], but that's another topic for another day. [Actually, you'd laugh if I told you how we study biochemistry and what the curricula for it is.]

For now, I just want an easier book than Moore to study the subject from so it doesn't just pass over my head. So I wanted a better perspective from someone who's actually read either Larsen's or Larsen's and Moore both.

Hope you get my conundrum.

 

[jm192]

I actually usd Langman's and thought it was great.

 

[gabloammar]

It's a great book to REVIEW the course in my case, sadly. Like otherwise, if I already knew all of the embryology, then to revise/review the course (which I have to do since I'm in freaking Pakistan where old coots make up the curriculum) Langman would be a great book. Kind of like Last's Anatomy is great for reviewing anatomy.

No one knows anything about Larsen's?