Pocket Book Medicine

[504196]

About to start medicine rotation next month. A resident today told me to get pocket book medicine because it helps students form really good plans for when they are presenting. He said it was the reason he got honors. Do you all recommend this book? What resources did you use during your IM rotation?

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[wiloghby]

If you are talking about Pocket Medicine, I found it super helpful. Medicine was my first rotation, and I did well in the beginning when I was sent to see a new admission by looking up the chief complaint in pocket medicine and reviewing the differential / "hx" section listed before seeing the patient in order to guide my patient encounter and ROS/PE.

Then, once you come out of the room, both the management section and uptodate proved really useful in formulating plans.

It helped a lot in the first couple of weeks of MS3 when we were all acclimating. I did just fine in the medicine clerkship and I am sure you can too.

 

[SpartanWolverine]

Yep. Pocket Medicine is really great. I also recommend having a good template to write your H&P on. For a while I used the Perfect H&P notebook but now just use this sheet.

 

[CatFactorial]

Use uptodate. I bought pocket medicine and wasted my money. My program got me pocket medicine at start of intern year and I still feel like I wasted money.

 

[gutonc]

I liked Pocket Medicine, for about 3 months of intern year. It probably would have been useful for my clerkship and Sub-I though.

 

[Elixir6]

I highly recommend Pocket Medicine. Maybe I'm a forgetful PGY-2 but I still use it to ensure I'm not missing anything. I find it more practical than UpToDate. In < 2 min you can go from CC or abnormal finding to making sure you have a broad differential with the right labs/studies ordered. I am however, the only resident at my program to use this - I think people think it makes you look like a novice, but I really don't care...

I would like to also plug the Outpatient Medicine version of this series. It's excellent.

I also bought the Emergency Medicine version - it was awful and useless.

 

[Crayola227]

Even my attendings liked to borrow mine from time to time. Sometimes it's faster on rounds then logging into a comp and pulling up UTD.

 

[FutureInternist]

Pocket Medicine and MKSAP for the particular rotation you are on.

 

[HoldTheCoffee]

I stopped using it after a month or two. During residency, I probably used UpToDate the most. Many university programs have subscriptions that will allow trainees to access UpToDate on your phone.

Edit - Just saw that this was for a rotation. As a med student, I think Pocket Medicine is OK. UpToDate is probably overkill. You should probably get a basic outline book, such as Step Up to Medicine (or whatever it's called). Your main goal as a third year on his/her IM clerkship is to learn the basics, not know every nitty gritty detail. Just my two cents