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Textbook Guide

Now that you have made it into medical school, one of your first tasks is to find out which textbooks you need. The first thing you should do for any subject is to check the curriculum to see what textbook the professors recommend. This can be found here.

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However, sometimes these textbooks aren't always the most simple or effective way in which you can absorb knowledge. Some people are capable of memorising a textbook, others prefer broken down summaries, and others learn best from pictures. 

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Below are our recommendations for your pre-clinical years and beyond.

Year 1
Anatomy
Histology
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Year 2
Physiology and Pathophysiology
Biochemistry, Immunology, Cytophysiology
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Year 3
Pathomorphology
Pharmacology
Microbiology
Internal Medicine
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Review
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Year 1

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Anatomy

Clinically Oriented Anatomy by Moore

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Pros:

  • This is the go-to textbook for all things anatomy, for first-year and clinical years.

  • The blue boxes are your little nuggets of wisdom

  • Great summary tables

  • All of your theory exam questions are derived from here.

Cons:

  • Pictures are all drawn and not cadavers

  • There is a lot of detail

Tip:

  • Essential Clinical Anatomy by Moore is much shorter and contains all of the essential information you need. It is much easier to read through

Color Atlas of Anatomy by Rohen

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Pros:

  • Filled with A4 cadaveric pictures

  • Good correlation with cadavers

Cons:

  • Cannot be used on its own, no theory information

Tip:

  • No atlas is a replacement for using the cadavers in class!

Anatomy at a Glance

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Pros:

  • Completely broken down information presented in dot points

  • Only 100-200 pages, so it is straightforward to work through for exam preparation 

Cons:

  • Is not totally comprehensive and should mainly be used if you are running out of time.

Tip:

  • There are many other summary books out there, the BRS Gross Anatomy and BRS Neuroanatomy are useful especially for those planning to sit the USMLE.

Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy

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Recommendation: The department recommends this textbook, but it is frankly too long and difficult to digest for the short amount of time you have. Using Moore's, the BRS Neuroanatomy and sources from the web will be more useful unless you already have a background in Neuroanatomy.

Teach Me Anatomy

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​Lacks the detail of Moore's but is a must use for the course. The website is set out efficiently and the diagrams focus on the most important details. 

Histology

Color Textbook of Histology by Gartner

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Pros:

  • Completely comprehensive for the course

  • All of your exam questions come from this textbook, often word-for-word so it is highly recommended to not deviate from this text

Cons:

  • Very text heavy, and can be difficult to work through.

Tip:

  • Pay attention to text that is in bold, it is usually important

Langman's Medical Embryology

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Pros:

  • Are there really any?

Cons:

  • You will not use most of this textbook. The embryology component of Histology comes from ~7 chapters

Tip:

  • Use a BRS or online resources, Embryology can be confusing.

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Year 2

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Physiology and Pathophysiology

Guyton & Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology

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Pros:

  • Very in-depth explanations so you need some knowledge before throwing yourself into Guyton

  • Trustworthy resource for higher years

Cons:

  • It is very heavy, and a beast of a textbook. It can be overwhelming for those with minimal background knowledge or find reading boring.

Tip:

  • There is a pocket companion that you can get

  • Using a BRS is much easier 

Biochemistry, Cytophysiology and Immunology

Lippincott's Illustrated Review Series

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Pros:

  • Perfect amount of detail presented in a concise way

  • Easy to understand

  • Will get you through these subjects

Cons:

  • These subjects can be conceptually difficult and it will take a lot of work to get through them so you may need to use these alongside the bulky recommended textbooks

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Year 3

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...and beyond

Pathomorphology

Robbins Basic Pathology​

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Pros:

  • This textbook is your bible for Pathomorphology, everything from the exams comes straight from here

  • Pairs nicely with the lectures

  • Useful diagrams

Cons:

  • Very detailed, may be overwhelming for some students

Tips:

  • Pair this with review sources, a BRS or the following textbook

Pathoma

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Pros:

  • Very easy to follow and much simpler than Robbins

  • Useful when it comes to reviewing the material for exams

Cons:

  • Exam questions come from the main textbook and this should be the primary resource

Tips:

  • Pathoma has also released lecture videos which are very useful if you do not like to read

Pharmacology
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Basic & Clinical Pharmacology by Katzung

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Pros:

  • Very detailed information and is considered the best pharmacology textbook

  • A lot of tables throughout the textbook

Cons:

  • Pharmacology is already pretty boring to study from a textbook, and this one is very long and detailed

Tips:

  • You can get away with learning all of your pharmacology information from SketchyPharm if you learn better this way

Microbiology
The microbiology course is taught really well and the course coordinator recommends the use of review materials. Lippincott's Microbiology has the same benefits as the previously mentioned Lippincott's textbooks. Clinical Microbiology made ridiculously simple is very easy to grasp and use. However, the main recommendation is to use SketchyMicro - this is the most useful resource in your arsenal for microbiology.
Internal Medicine

Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine

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Pros:

  • Detailed information about pathophysiology, clinical presentation and management of each disease

  • Useful for most of your Clinical modules, besides the likes of Surgery, Psychiatry etc

Cons:

  • Difficult to use for early years and quite detailed

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Review

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Comprehensive

Toronto Notes

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Pros:

  • Short and succinct notes about diseases

  • Easy to understand dot-point format

  • Good tables for comparative information

  • Good mnemonics

  • Covers every single specialty in medicine

  • You could get away with just using this text book

Cons:

  • Very brief and should be supplemented with larger resources that have greater detail

USMLE Prep
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Board Review Series (BRS)

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Pros:

  • Very good and popular textbooks for reviewing the material for pre-clinical years

  • Designed with the USMLE in mind

  • Provide simple diagrams and explanations

  • Have questions in the back

Cons:

  • Should be used along side a primary textbook

Kaplan Lecture Notes​

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Pros:

  • Very USMLE focused

  • Very well laid out, with easy to understand notes.

  • Updated every year

  • Have textbooks for both Step 1 and Step 2

  • Can be used in conjunction with the Kaplan Classroom Anywhere videos - the Step 2 ones are particularly good

Cons:

  • Should be used along side a primary textbook, but for the Step 2 stuff you probably can get away with just these

  • No questions (but their Qbank probably links well with these)

FIRST AID for the USMLE​

 

Pros:

  • Very very USMLE focused

  • Very well laid out, with easy to understand notes.

  • Updated every year

  • Have textbooks for both Step 1 and Step 2

  • Always mention what is high yield

  • Very easy to get ahold of

  • Provide a textbook which covers scenarios for USMLE Step 2 CS which other companies do not

Cons:

  • Should be used alongside a primary textbook, the Step 2 CK textbook is not enough to use for your Internal Medicine, Surgery and definitely not Psychiatry exams

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