Oxford textbook of medicine

**Dr Noodle** · 10-10-2008, 03:53 PM

Oxford textbook of medicine...is it a worthy purchase despite the £120 price tag?

My parents may get it for me for my birthday so I wanted to check which one should I get. Online so far I've found the 'concise' one from 2000 (which I've borrowed from the library), another one that's around 500 pages long, another that's 1200 pages and another that's around 4500 I think. All published the same year (2006)...

Is the content too much for a first year?

Thank you for any help

**Gizmo says -** · 10-10-2008, 05:50 PM

dont bother, Nadz,save it for beer money, and for maybe buying the right choice of book when you can no longer reach the library easily, i wuld.

so far, bought anatomy colouring book and bought tortora anatomy from charity shops for less than a fiver in total, i fink it was.
(plus a fiendish 'aul of books for free from ma poshie neighbours and from when i worked at a med skool over the summer hehe all good though perhaps thats not so easy to do at peninsula cos you dont ave as many poshies there hmmm).

**chicken66** · 10-10-2008, 06:09 PM

i've not got it, but i'd recommend seeing if you can find it in a library and borrowing it for a week to have a flick through and see if you like it

**Gizmo says -** · 10-10-2008, 07:19 PM

i've got it but no bought it hehehe!

**James** · 10-10-2008, 07:57 PM

Don't buy it. You will find very quickly that 'general' textbooks like this don't have the detail you need and you will go over to specialist books in that particular area.

**Dr Noodle** · 11-10-2008, 01:39 AM

Originally Posted by James

Don't buy it. You will find very quickly that 'general' textbooks like this don't have the detail you need and you will go over to specialist books in that particular area.

None of us have any idea how much detail we're actually supposed to go into with self directed learning. Our anatomy tutor quoted someone saying 'it's better to learn and forget something than to have not learnt it at all' and said that was his way of attempting to explain it. Confusing

Ye I have the anatomy and physiology colouring books Giz, they're brilliant! I've ordered the 11th ed of tortora, got it pretty cheap and I'm borrowing Moore and Dalley until next feb when the new ed comes out.

Thanks for the replies

**yazoo** · 11-10-2008, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Dr Noodle

None of us have any idea how much detail we're actually supposed to go into with self directed learning. Our anatomy tutor quoted someone saying 'it's better to learn and forget something than to have not learnt it at all' and said that was his way of attempting to explain it. Confusing

He's right. Medicine as a broad subject is VAST! You can only learn it layer upon layer. things you forget one year, you may remember the next. You will go over and over the need to know topics at med school (the course is designed that way) so that at least some of it sticks in!

Crash Course level will get you through most exams at most med schools. Oxford Textbook is too much for 1st year (unless piles of money and you want a nice reference text). But join Drs.net (you can now you are a med student) and you can access for free on the internet. From a medicine level, baby Kumar is about all you need to know for the 1st 3 years. Then Davidsons for 3-5year. I personally don't like K&C itself, but the little version is good.

**Dr Noodle** · 11-10-2008, 05:51 PM

Originally Posted by yazoo

He's right. Medicine as a broad subject is VAST! You can only learn it layer upon layer. things you forget one year, you may remember the next. You will go over and over the need to know topics at med school (the course is designed that way) so that at least some of it sticks in!

Crash Course level will get you through most exams at most med schools. Oxford Textbook is too much for 1st year (unless piles of money and you want a nice reference text). But join Drs.net (you can now you are a med student) and you can access for free on the internet. From a medicine level, baby Kumar is about all you need to know for the 1st 3 years. Then Davidsons for 3-5year. I personally don't like K&C itself, but the little version is good.

Thank you! The Drs.net website is coming up with 'disaster recovery service'...