Customer Rating: 
Summary: Too much nitty gritty
Comment: They crammed as much as they could into this microscopic book. This book is fine if you like reading font the size of a grain of sand. The book is poorly organized, and really doesn't have that much useful info for a 3rd year starting clerkships. I would suggest First Aid for Clerkships if you really want to get a feel for things before starting 3rd year. You have enough crap to carry around in your white coat in your 3rd year and I can guarantee that this book will not be a priority for fitting into that white coat. Skip it and get a more useful book that you won't need a magnifying glass to read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: don't buy this tarascon title!!
Comment: This book really does not tell anything a 2nd year PA student or 3rd year medical student doesn't already know. Don't waste your time on this one. Tarascons other books; Primary Care, ER, and the Pharmacopia are descent toilet reading though.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Must-read before starting your clinical clerkships!
Comment: Most Junior Medical Students (JMS's) feel intimidated when they begin their clinical year of medical school. You wanna learn how to cope up with this stress? Then buy this pocketbook !
Even though I bought it from Dalhousie University (Halifax) at the end of my junior clinical year, yet it was of great help to me later.This pocketbook explores the world of the hospital, the role of each member, and how things are done in terms of writing notes, ordering tests, and performing procedures.
In Chapter 1, it introduces the JMS's to how a hospital works: (Outpatient vs. inpatient care, community vs. teaching hospitals, Private & staff patients, Nursing units & specialty services, Physician teams, Getting admitted to the hospital, Night calls, Ward routines from a patient's perspective).
Then the author talks in Chapter 2 about how to do stuff including reviewing a chart, writing orders, medications and prescriptions.
Chapter 3 teaches how to write notes (admission notes, internal medicine daily progress notes, discharge notes, notes for the Surgical care, Obstetrics, Pediatrics, Neurology and Psychiatry).
Chapter 4 focuses on procedures, in terms of preparation, introduction to phlebotomy & IV placement, performing venipuncture, taking blood culture, arterial blood gases, ECG, lumbar puncture, NG tube & Dobhoff placement, placing a urinary catheter, and local anesthesia.
Chapter 5 deals with bedside tests including urinalysis and Gram stain.
Finally Chapter 6 teaches JMS's how to organize their data and schedule, and to make a good presentation.
This pocketbook comes in 124 pages, published by Tarascon Press, in its 6th edition, 2001.
The only drawback I found is that chapter 3 is entirely duplicated twice, at least in my copy. Other than that, I strongly recommend this pocketbook for med students before commencing their clinical clerkships.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I don't know how I could have survived my clerkships without
Comment: This book absolutely made hospital life clear to me in those terrifying first weeks of both my medical and my surgical clerkships. I think every single medical student should buy this book this second!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Has broad insights as well as nitty-gritty details
Comment: I have had the distinct pleasure of working with the author during medical school at Case Western Reserve University. He is an exceptional person--able to see the big picture as well as the small details. I read and re-read his book (which at that time was not really a book, but more of a packet)before each clerkship and found it to be very reassuring and insightful. I believe he wrote it just after he finished his third year--so it is right on-target for the intended audience. On a general note, there really is not enough guidance for medical students as they struggle through the clinical years, but this book really does help. Be thankful that Dr. Lederman took the time to write it and publish it.
