Pathology: Robbins vs. Rubin's

[Lanvin]

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My school uses "Rubin's Pathology: Clinicopathologic Foundations of Medicine" and has a separate pathophysiology course that is supposed to be brutal (but well taught).

Will Rubin's be enough for me given that I will be taught pathophys?
Should I buy Robbins even though my school will be heavily referencing Rubin's?

What is the current consensus regarding these two textbooks?

 

[PistolPete]

I have Rubin's, and it looks quite thorough. You'll be fine. You can always buy Robbin's if you're worried, but pathology is pathology. If you know the fundamentals, you'll be set for boards, I think.

 

[Caboose]

I like Robbins, but they both start with R, so I can't discriminate.

 

[NRAI2001]

I tried to read Robbins but realized that readign it was very low yield.

 

[nlax30]

We used Robbins. This year they changed the required text to Rubins but by that time my class was already used to Robbins and a fair amount of us just stuck with it and weren't huge fans of Rubins.

Reading Robbins can be a pain, lots of low yield stuff, but there's enough review material to help focus on what you need to know and I liked having the extra details available if I wanted to know more.

Rubins does have some decent diagrams though. Either one is perfectly fine.

 

[Scaredshizzles]

I think the vast majority would agree that thoroughly knowing what is in review books (BRS/Goljan's/maybe RR) plus class notes together will probably get you a higher score on class exams and the boards than taking the time to read Robbins or Rubin's. There might be some exceptions where some course directors will take detailed material specifically from the text which is not covered in lecture (or review books) and test you on it, but I think that is more the exception and usually involves only a couple of questions.

Now if you really like pathology, then I would suggest reading the texts. Robbins imo was a slightly better read, but Rubin's might have more pictures for the budding pathologist to compare with to the slides/patient specimens.

 

[NRAI2001]

I think the vast majority would agree that thoroughly knowing what is in review books (BRS/Goljan's/maybe RR) plus class notes together will probably get you a higher score on class exams and the boards than taking the time to read Robbins or Rubin's. There might be some exceptions where some course directors will take detailed material specifically from the text which is not covered in lecture (or review books) and test you on it, but I think that is more the exception and usually involves only a couple of questions.

Now if you really like pathology, then I would suggest reading the texts. Robbins imo was a slightly better read, but Rubin's might have more pictures for the budding pathologist to compare with to the slides/patient specimens.

I read Robbins for the first exam as well as rapid review and brs. Not gonna do that for the next exam; you ll get more out of just memorizing your notes and reading rapid review. I plan to just memorize the notes and read rapid review and brs. I feel RR or BRS on their own isnt sufficient enough, but both of them is an excellent combination.👍

 

[Guyton Killah]

My school uses "Rubin's Pathology: Clinicopathologic Foundations of Medicine" and has a separate pathophysiology course that is supposed to be brutal (but well taught).

Will Rubin's be enough for me given that I will be taught pathophys?
Should I buy Robbins even though my school will be heavily referencing Rubin's?

What is the current consensus regarding these two textbooks?

They are all crappy books either way