Best book to read before starting?

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I'm interesting in reading ahead of time, so what one book would be the best to read before starting med school? I'm not looking for rote memorization, moreso just something that I can read and learn from.

Any suggestions would be great.
 
Thank you 🙂. Is this one of the more widely used texts?

It was a joke. The best book to get is anything not related to medicine, preferably read through sunglasses with a little GNR playing on the ipod, Corona bottle dripping beads of condensation onto your beach towel.
 
It was a joke. The best book to get is anything not related to medicine, preferably read through sunglasses with a little GNR playing on the ipod, Corona bottle dripping beads of condensation onto your beach towel.
I've had plenty of time off so I am actually looking for a serious recommendation. 😉
 
This question is asked fairly regularly on this forum. You'll get some serious responses eventually, but the resounding chorus will be...."Do you have ANY idea how much you're about to get slammed with information for the next 8 or so years of your life?" Reading a book in any attempt to help with that is such a drop in the bucket.

Seriously, either read for pleasure or don't read period.

If you MUST read something ahead of time..well, I'd say pick up a good basic anatomy or physiology book. Any will do if it's just some basic information you want to get into your head. For your purposes, it's more important for you to browse books and pick one that you think you will learn best from and enjoy, opposed to some med student's skewed view.
 
I suggest the following:

"The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus
"Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts" by Beckett

Trust me, you'll get a lot out of them.
 
Complications: A Surgeons Notes on an Imperfect Science
 
The Bible🙂
 
The Bible🙂
lol, some good replies here. Just to emphasize, I don't plan on mastering things and I realize that ultimately what I learn is relatively small. Certainly though, it's no inconsequential. Also, I've been out of school for almost a couple years so I've taken my "break."
 
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. That's one of my favorites.
 
Since you are insistent I will second Robbin's path. I still agree with everyone else you should chill out and not do anything medically related, but path is the most important subject you will have in medical school. Also recommend House of God by Shem.
 
lol, some good replies here. Just to emphasize, I don't plan on mastering things and I realize that ultimately what I learn is relatively small. Certainly though, it's no inconsequential. Also, I've been out of school for almost a couple years so I've taken my "break."

i took 3 years off between college and med school. IMHO it is not possible to master anything until you're in med school mode.

for example, you can buy a board review book and begin learning from it. then you'll just find it frustrating that your classes go into all this detail that aren't in your board review books.

you could take another route and take on a subject ie-anatomy or biochemistry since those are typically 1st year courses. however, when you start the course you'll find that the things you were covering on your own were covered in the first day of class or again they'll focus on different aspects.

the best thing you learn in med school is how to take too much information and funnel it into what's important and what's not and to do it quickly. it is very difficulty to learn this until you're forced to and have instructors and classmates helping you out.

i stick by my original recs of reading Camus or Beckett in your time off. Then when you get to your clinic years you will have interesting things to talk with your attendings about and they'll give you better evals and grades.
 
Since you are insistent I will second Robbin's path. I still agree with everyone else you should chill out and not do anything medically related, but path is the most important subject you will have in medical school. Also recommend House of God by Shem.

I really doubt you could get much out of Robbins without having anatomy, phys, and biochem before-hand. You'll be in over your head. If you want to read, pleasure read. Do whatever you enjoy now, because you'll have a lot less time for it when med school starts. Trust me, you will end up looking back on whatever you decide to review now and realizing what a huge waste of your time it was. You will regret not doing something cool with that time.
 
I really doubt you could get much out of Robbins without having anatomy, phys, and biochem before-hand. You'll be in over your head. If you want to read, pleasure read. Do whatever you enjoy now, because you'll have a lot less time for it when med school starts. Trust me, you will end up looking back on whatever you decide to review now and realizing what a huge waste of your time it was. You will regret not doing something cool with that time.

100% agree with you. However, OP is insistent that he read something medical, and I think that is the most useful book to read.
 
100% agree with you. However, OP is insistent that he read something medical, and I think that is the most useful book to read.
Well, the last textbook I read for fun was on nutrition and amino acid metabolism so it's not like I'm incredibly averse to wasting a little time on some science lol. Thanks for the input though, I really appreciate it all!
 
How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman 👍
 
It was a joke. The best book to get is anything not related to medicine, preferably read through sunglasses with a little GNR playing on the ipod, Corona bottle dripping beads of condensation onto your beach towel.

Only a medical student would think GNR means "Gram Negative Rods". 😎

Also recommend House of God by Shem.

Thought it was a humorous book despite the subject matter.

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman 👍

I read that one. I also recommend "How to kill as few patients as possible" by Oscar London.
 
I would have to agree with the other posts. Although, I would give one recommendation. I would read House of God. A lot of folks read it in their intern year, but I think it will give you a little perspective prior to starting medical school. The only caveat is that it will NOT help you at all from a class standpoint.

Good luck.
 
I suggest the following:

"The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus
"Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts" by Beckett

Trust me, you'll get a lot out of them.

"Waiting for Godot" is a great way to help in lecture. Thinking back to the play you'll remember that there are a lot more boring things than sitting in class all day.
 
Any medical narrative if you insist on reading something to learn. There is a book called Surviving the extremes which I thought was pretty cool way to learn about how the body survives in some of the extreme scenarios actual people have survived through (how someone survived being in a desert for X days and the physiological changes that he went through as he did, etc..)

410D6ASWQPL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg


Another fun book to read is "Why Do Men Have Nipples"- I enjoyed it. "Complications" (or anything by Atul Gawande), "How Doctors Think" are other ones I can think of. "The Medic" is another interesting book taken from the perspective of a WWII medic on the front lines of battle and the kinds of trauma he sees, and the patients he treated. Interestingly enough I learned quite a lot about Celiac Sprue from one of these medical narratives (Must've been Complications)- and learned more than any medical text taught me. When framed in a story, the reading is interesting and you learn quite a lot. "The Year of the Intern" by Robin Cook was an OK read, written by a resident who lives in Hawaii and he talks about his breaks away from the hospital to go surfing, life as an intern in a hospital with minimal resources, etc.. Lastly, and this isn't really too relevant to medicine is Lance Armstrong's book, "It's Not About the Bike"- you learn quite a lot about cancer treatments and the kind of hell he went through to get his testicular cancer treated (it's also an amazingly inspirational book). Lastly, "Awakenings", is a classic to read if you havn't read it, or seen it in film.
 
I read Body of Knowledge before I started. It is about some first years at Albert Einstein. It also has stories about the cadavers when they were alive that runs in parallel with the students' stories.
 
I read Body of Knowledge before I started. It is about some first years at Albert Einstein. It also has stories about the cadavers when they were alive that runs in parallel with the students' stories.

Good book. Actually took place at UMDNJ-NJMS. A reporter took a semester of gross with the first-years, and wrote about it.
 
I'll reiterate that reading before school is a gargantuan waste of time. If you're really intent on reading something, pick up a couple BRS books for your first year classes. I honestly think you'll deeply regret squandering your time pre-studying, but whatever works for you.
 
Seriously dude/dudette, don't study before school. I was in your shoes last year and considered it for about 2 seconds, I'm so glad I didn't study. People who do study before med school end up regretting it big time; as you can tell by the advice given from this thread that it is a huge waste of time.
 
Well, the last textbook I read for fun was on nutrition and amino acid metabolism so it's not like I'm incredibly averse to wasting a little time on some science lol. Thanks for the input though, I really appreciate it all!

Gunner in the making. Hope we're not in school together next year...
 
Similar to the comments posted above, I'm not sure pre-reading the summer before will make a very big difference, but it may provide you with a good footing when you start classes. My personal recommendation if you really want to read something before school starts is to read some of the books recommended above (Complications, House of God, How Doctors Think, Stiff, etc.). The summer before I started med. school I wanted to learn more about the U.S. health care system. I was embarrassed that I didn't know much about it despite the fact that I was about to spend the rest of my life dealing with it. So, I got a few books from the public library about health care policy, different solutions, criticisms, etc. I'm definitely not an expert but I do have a better understanding of what I'm getting myself into.

However, if you really are interested in reading something more geared towards school, I would recommend you to get a copy of your M1 schedule and find out what classes you are taking first. For most schools, it's usually Biochemistry. Instead of reading a textbook, you can go buy a Biochem. review book (i.e., Lippincotts) and read through that so you have a good foundation on which to build upon once school begins. Don't do this for all the classes. Just the first one or two so you can ease into the med. school experience and figure out how to study effectively once classes start. Make sure you actually go outside, too. Take your Biochem. book to the beach if nothing else. You may get beat up by some current med. students, but it looks like you're willing to take the risk.
 
Iserson's Getting into a Residency is a great one to start thinking about where you can focus your efforts when you begin med school. A lot of really great tips on premed years, preclinical years, clinical rotations, and picking a specialty.

Do yourself a favor and wait to start slogging through Robbins. You will get plenty of it when you start.

Stiff by Mary Roach is an interesting read, and a humorous intro to Anatomy.
 
Complications: A Surgeons Notes on an Imperfect Science

Better is also very good. Warm fuzzy feeling about getting into medicine, none of the brainache of actual studying.
 
If you have never taken micro or forgot a lot of it then I would recommend "Microbiology Made Ridiculously Easy". It goes into micro and basic pharm. Micro is not a huge part of boards but the book is educational and fun to read. Robbins for path is a great book, but don't expect to read it before med school and remember anything. You could pick out big topics like TB and cancer. Overall, I second what everyone else is saying and don't stress yourself out before school.
 
House of God - seconded

Also enjoyed "The Hot Zone"

Loved both of these books.

To the OP: Do not read anything serious to prepare you for med school. Enjoy the rest of your free time. There is nothing that you can do that is going to prepare you except to be well rested before classes start.
 
If you have never taken micro or forgot a lot of it then I would recommend "Microbiology Made Ridiculously Easy". It goes into micro and basic pharm. Micro is not a huge part of boards but the book is educational and fun to read. Robbins for path is a great book, but don't expect to read it before med school and remember anything. You could pick out big topics like TB and cancer. Overall, I second what everyone else is saying and don't stress yourself out before school.

Micro is not huge on the boards compared to pathophys, but that's only because pathophys is the most expansive and most important topic. Micro is still pretty important and a lot of the topics in pathophys involve infectious agents.
 
Oh, and if you're looking for something to do before med school starts, hit the gym and get your fat ass in shape before med school starts. That's what I wish I had done before first year had started.
 
Go read books that will make you an awesome pick-up artist!
 
Don't read pathology, that would be insane. There's a reason that pathology class is in the second year. It won't make sense to you without first year material under your belt. If you want to read something to prep for school, go with biochem (e.g. Lippincott's) or physiology (e.g. Boron & Boulpaep) because those are important first year subjects. You could also do the Sidman's neuroanatomy book because it is really low key, but also a great way to start understanding the language of neuro.

However, I agree with all of the above who suggest that you do NOT start reading any medical textbooks over the summer. House of God, everything by Gawande, some Oliver Sacks books - that's the way to go.
 
How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman 👍

I've read this one. I can't say I recommend it compared to some of the others out there:

Complications by Atul Gawande
Better by Atul Gawande
Intern by Sandeep Jauhur
First Do No Harm by Lisa Belkin
 
OVERDO$ED AMERICA: The Broken Promise of American Medicine
 
Any medical narrative if you insist on reading something to learn. There is a book called Surviving the extremes which I thought was pretty cool way to learn about how the body survives in some of the extreme scenarios actual people have survived through (how someone survived being in a desert for X days and the physiological changes that he went through as he did, etc..)

410D6ASWQPL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg


Another fun book to read is "Why Do Men Have Nipples"- I enjoyed it. "Complications" (or anything by Atul Gawande), "How Doctors Think" are other ones I can think of. "The Medic" is another interesting book taken from the perspective of a WWII medic on the front lines of battle and the kinds of trauma he sees, and the patients he treated. Interestingly enough I learned quite a lot about Celiac Sprue from one of these medical narratives (Must've been Complications)- and learned more than any medical text taught me. When framed in a story, the reading is interesting and you learn quite a lot. "The Year of the Intern" by Robin Cook was an OK read, written by a resident who lives in Hawaii and he talks about his breaks away from the hospital to go surfing, life as an intern in a hospital with minimal resources, etc.. Lastly, and this isn't really too relevant to medicine is Lance Armstrong's book, "It's Not About the Bike"- you learn quite a lot about cancer treatments and the kind of hell he went through to get his testicular cancer treated (it's also an amazingly inspirational book). Lastly, "Awakenings", is a classic to read if you havn't read it, or seen it in film.

This surviving the extremes book looked interesting so I bought it. It better be good or I'm hunting you down. :laugh: Who wants to study for an ob/gyn shelf anyway......
 
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