pros and cons of silverburg, rosai, sternberg

[mplee79]

Hello, I know this topic has probably been discussed to death but I'm interested in which big text everyone is using currently and why. I'm a new resident and after briefly thumbing through all of them, I can't really see why one is preferred over the others.

I like texts that have good readability, well organized/concise (not verbose) and many pictures.

I appreciate your opinions.

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[yaah]

It is reader-dependent. Each text (as well as Weidner) has its fans and detractors. Generally people spend some time with each and they find that one of them keeps drawing them back in. I like them all but mostly use Sternberg as it is more concise.

 

[star23]

Speaking from experience, the thing NOT to do as a first year resident is to blow your book money on the the "big" text that your senior residents tell you that you HAVE to have. I did just that buying Rosai as a first year and I hated it - I use it as a door stop now. I much prefer Sternberg myself but figure out for yourself which one you like best before buying any.

 

[mrp]

Differential diagnosis in surg path is a great book for junior residents. It's outline format, but I always found it helpful when I was in residency.

 

[KCShaw]

I ended up with Rosai, largely because at the time only Rosai & Sternberg had been shown to me, Rosai seemed to have better images, and I liked that there was only one author. I also bought within the first couple weeks or so of 1st year. Although to me it's easy to read, it's also easy to miss things if you don't read..every..single..word. I.e., it's hard to just skim and scan for details you're looking for. Most everyone I've spoken to who use Sternberg say the same things people have already posted; little easier to read text on average, and more easy to understand tables/lists.

But in retrospect I probably would have gotten Silverberg because it seems to have a combination of what I like most between Sternberg & Rosai. But by the time I was exposed to it or to Dr. Silverberg I was in 3rd year and not really keen to start with a new 2 volume text, so I didn't and never read a lot of it.

There are a few other big general texts, and they all have their followers. As everyone else says, though, if you have access to a copy of each you'll eventually find yourself gravitating towards one. If you're trying to make a decision quickly, pick a few entities, at least one of them very common and at least one very rare, and try looking them up and reading about them in each one.

 

[Hector]

For a beginner, I recommend Rosai. Since it is written mostly by one author, it provides a more consistent approach to the topics. I read it from cover to cover and it is all you need for AP boards. The photography is also top notch.

But as you gain experience, you will find that the more important than "which book to buy" is "which authors do I want to read?"

The question is determined individually based on variables such as where you are training, who are your mentors, and which "tribe" you belong too. You should definitely be well-read in the chapters or books written by your own department members!

For instance, Sternberg has some of the most key chapters written by the most key people in surgical pathology (in my opinion). I read it for the cervix chapter (Crum), the gestational chapter (Kurman), uterus (Kempson, Hendrickson, Longacre), ovary (Young). I like the GI chapter (Antonioli) and larynx (Mills).

But I read the Weidner books for the Lymph node (L Weiss), bone marrow (Arber), soft tissue (L Weiss), thyroid (Chan), spleen (Arber), liver (Ferrell, 1st ed), skin (Mihm, 1st ed), lung + mediastinum (Suster, Moran). Also deserving mention is prostate (Bostwick) and bladder (Amin). Of course I also study the prostate chapter from Sternberg (Epstein).

There are a few other books I regularly use too, but much of the highly technical stuff you need that is beyond the scope of a general text is available from Pubmed.

 

[KeratinPearls]

For a beginner, I recommend Rosai. Since it is written mostly by one author, it provides a more consistent approach to the topics. I read it from cover to cover and it is all you need for AP boards. The photography is also top notch.

But as you gain experience, you will find that the more important than "which book to buy" is "which authors do I want to read?"

The question is determined individually based on variables such as where you are training, who are your mentors, and which "tribe" you belong too. You should definitely be well-read in the chapters or books written by your own department members!

For instance, Sternberg has some of the most key chapters written by the most key people in surgical pathology (in my opinion). I read it for the cervix chapter (Crum), the gestational chapter (Kurman), uterus (Kempson, Hendrickson, Longacre), ovary (Young). I like the GI chapter (Antonioli) and larynx (Mills).

But I read the Weidner books for the Lymph node (L Weiss), bone marrow (Arber), soft tissue (L Weiss), thyroid (Chan), spleen (Arber), liver (Ferrell, 1st ed), skin (Mihm, 1st ed), lung + mediastinum (Suster, Moran). Also deserving mention is prostate (Bostwick) and bladder (Amin). Of course I also study the prostate chapter from Sternberg (Epstein).

There are a few other books I regularly use too, but much of the highly technical stuff you need that is beyond the scope of a general text is available from Pubmed.

I always laugh at ppl who say I read it cover to cover. Seriously, how much of that do you remember? I think that is purely psychotic to read Rosai from cover to cover since that book to me is just all over the place. Man you read all those other books? That is nuts.

 

[Hector]

AP boards studying: Read Rosai cover to cover.
CP boards: Read Henry's mostly cover to cover (80%).

Other books I have not done the same bit I have for selected chapters. I'm amazed at people who depend on compendiums and synoptic books when the real stuff is there in full detail.

It is possible to remember details years after reading it, especially if it was deliberate and meaningful reading at the time, and the knowledge is continously applied in a practical way.

People study in different ways. To me, it's not about seeing the forest through te trees. Most people can't remember enough little details to even form a small grove of trees let alone a forest.

I'm unable to discuss the study habit question right now, but suffice it to say that my grasp of the big picture leaped forward into another league after I finally sat down and read the whole Rosai. I was reading disjointed pieces here and there before.

Cheers.

 

[KCShaw]

I'm not sure I even read my Cliffs Notes all the way through, back in the day. When I first tried to read Rosai "cover to cover" I felt like it was taking so long and I wasn't able to do as much reading on things I was actually seeing every day, so, I changed what I was doing.

I'm sure people do eventually read one or more of the big texts truly "cover to cover," and over the course of time I think it's an ideal thing to do. No most humans won't be able to remember "everything" in there, but then again you remember considerably less if you read nothing at all. More is more. The key is finding a system that works for you, whether that's reading, taking notes of your reading, then re-writing your notes in color-coded fashion, and working your way through a book/series of books, or looking at your day-to-day cases and occasionally turning to another resident, attending, book, or PubMed to skim over something or other about it in haphazard fashion, or some combination. If you're making progress more or less with your peers &/or RISE in areas you've done rotations in, then you're at least more or less on track and can choose to alter..or not..your learning methods in an attempt to excel.

Personally I prefer to really thoroughly read a good summary and remember lots than try to read an absurdly long source knowing that I will likely get lost in the details (at least, the first time I'm trying to learn about it) and subsequently remember less. I.e., know a short book very well rather than not know a long book much at all.

 

[Patho2009]

What about this book?

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Surgic...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280384990&sr=8-1

 

[Hector]

The book cited is the Weidner text book in 2nd edition. I purchased this because some of the 1st edition chapters where quite old. The new one has nice photos, but my point from before still stands.

You really want to look at the authors and see if they are people your program is associated with. Although surgical pathology is practiced with high standards everywhere, a lot of the approaches, criteria, thresholds, terminology, etc are very much "tribe dependent". And some things are more about following a famous person's set of conventions rather a matter of absolute truths.

With respect to Mod Surg Path 2nd ed, I really like it because it has people I know and trust in it. But Linda Ferrell is no longer the liver chapter author (did she and Weidner have a bad split?).