Rotations

[darly]

I have a few questions regarding rotations.

1. Is any one doing rotations at Pacific Hospital in Long Beach? How about Downey Regional Hospital? How are your experiences at those hospitals? What are some good hospitals to do my electives (maybe peds and ob/gyn) in Southern California?

2. What are some books that you would recommend for rotations?

3. I am considering getting a palm pilot or a pocket PC. What would you recommend? Is it necessary? I have ~$300 to spend on it.

Thanks for you time!

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[Stinky T]

#2 Books that I would definitely get are:

Saint-Francis Guide to Inpatient Medicine, Surgical Recall, Mt. Reid Surgical Handbook, Pharmacopoeia, Maxwell Cards, and Sanford Guide. These books are very useful for any medical student on rotations.

These books would be helpful too:

Mosby's Guide to Diagnostic and Laboratory Tests, Mass General Hospital Handbook of Internal Medicine, and First Aid for the USMLE Step 2, Edition 3 (I never used this book, but I've seen it and the new version seems much better than previous ones). I would also recommend a good Radiology book, but one that isn't too detailed unless you plan on going into Radiology. I never really found a Peds books that I really liked, but then again, I was never really interested in Peds. I wound up buying blueprints and reading the Peds sections of USMLE Review books. I used Blueprints for OB/GYN, but you can probably borrow this from someone. This book combined with what I learned from rotations was more than sufficient for me.

These books would be a good start for someone about to start their third year of medical school. You'd obviously have to buy more books based upon what fields you were interested in and how much you want to spend.

#3 If you only have $300 to spend, get a Sony Clie. The screen is much better than the Palm, in my opinion. If you do get a Palm, as a medical student, you'll find 5MCC and Lexidrugs to be very useful. Send me a private message if you can't get a copy of both of those applications.