Sarah Edwards, Peninsula Medical School

A really good book, was especially useful on my orthopedics rotation. Like all of the crash course series it starts with presenting complaint followed by common conditions. I would throughly recommend this for orthopedics and rheumatology. I wish there was colour pictures! This book is a must have!

Posted 30th Nov 2009

Esther Tan, King's College London

This book covers a wide scope of diseases and disorders and also includes a section on history taking, joint examination and investigations for musculoskeletal disorders. The book is split into 2 main sections: 1) How the patient presents. This section goes through the differential diagnoses of a sign or symptom (e.g. knee pain) and focusses on what questions to ask in the history, what to look out for during examination, and what kind of investigations to order. Useful algorithms are given to help with the diagnosis. 2) Specific diseases/disorders. This section covers individual diseases in more detail, describing the aetiology, pathology, clinical features, etc. The book is very readable and uncomplicated. However, I personally feel that some diseases should be covered in greater detail and this book alone would not be adequate for answering some of the more difficult exam questions. For example, the chapter on rheumatoid arthritis would benefit from having a larger section on the different types of treatment available. Overall, this book covers a wide variety of diseases and presentations and I found it useful at the beginning of the rheumatology/orthopaedics rotation to get a feel of the specialities.

Posted 19th Oct 2008