Hi all,
Just wondering on what's the best (and easiest to read) reference textbook for an MS3 on Surgery rotation. I mean a texbook that will go over the anatomy, describe the procedure, and have good drawings/pictures of the major steps.
Thanx for your help! 🙂
As a third year student, no one is going to expect you to know the technical details of a case or how to do the major steps. Anatomy questions are fair game for pimping in the OR, although you won't really be asked anatomy on the shelf exam. More important for the floors and for the OR would be to know everything you can about the patient (for example, how they presented and how they've been managed so far prior to surgery), the type of procedure being done (don't walk into the room and ask "is this the whipple?"), the indications for the operation, the possible complications, and the expected results. Also, make sure you meet the patient before the case! I've known attendings who will make the student scrub out of the case if they find out the student didn't know anything about the patient.
As far as the best text to read, this is a harder question to answer because there's no single book that is the best for everything. What I, and others, found helpful was to use a combination of books. Surgical Recall is good for the pimping that happens on the floor and in the OR, but don't make the mistake of thinking that this will be enough info for the shelf exam. (You might also want to be careful about flashing Recall around on the wards. There are some old school attendings who really don't like the book.) Lawrence is a good text at the student level (Sabiston, Schwartz, and Greenfield are overkill for a third year student), and a combination of reading Lawrence and doing questions will be good prep for the shelf. If you have to take an oral exam too, I found Surgical Attending Rounds to be helpful prep for that.
It's a tall order to read all that, but if you set aside a little time every day, and keep photocopies or electronic versions of those books to read during downtime (like between cases) you'll be a star. But don't ever make the mistake of turning down a case to "go read." It might seem like a good idea and a better way to spend your time, but it's the kiss of death and will sink your subjective evaluation. Good luck!
