Vital Signs & Fool's Review Pocket Medicine Title:Pocket Medicine Author Marc Sabatine List Price $27.95 Pages 260 Format PaperBack Date Feb 2000 Pros: Nice reviews of topics in handy to read format, customizable, fits in your pocket Cons: Microsized text a bit hard to read at times Readability Usefullness Coolness Overall

Tarascon Adult Emergency Pocketbook


Harrisons Internal Medicine CD Set

There is a “little black book” in medicine and the Pocket Medicine notebook is it! It’s perfect for medicine house officers, subIs, and medical students.

There are probably only 3 books that are consistently in medicine houseofficer’s pockets, including a pharmacopia, an intern survival guide of some kind, and Pocket Medicine.
Unlike other small pocketbooks, this one is made to be customized with each resident’s notes, important phone numbers, and the like. It is in a unique mini-binder with 6 hole punched pages, with the unique ability to add your own topics as they arise, and keep it organized and all together.

But the strength of the book lies in it’s straightforward approach to common internal medicine problems. How many times have you wanted to remember if the urine sodium was high or low in SIADH? What about the myriad of causes for microcytic anemia? What about asthma classifications?

Each page or two contains the essentials of diagnosis and management for a topic. There are bullet points for definitions, epidemiology, clinical manifestations, diagnostic studies, and treatment. Wherever appropriate there are tables included to help solidify the topic or break down various categories. Also are flowchart workup diagrams for some diagnoses, such as the workup of acute diarrhea.

Charts such as Signs and symptoms of uremia, Clinical manifestations of lyme disease, Etiologies of proteinuria are examples of just a few of the tables included. Each chapter contains a medical specialty (e.g. Cardiology) which has the top10-20 topics you need to know. For example: EKG, Chest pain, Non invasive CAD evaluation, Unstable angina, Acute MI, etc…

The strength in Pocket Medicine is the ability to quickly skim a topic for the major points without having to dig up a big book or an article on the subject. You will seldom sit through an internal medicine morning report or grand rounds without seeing at least one person use their Little Black Book to quickly skim a topic for definitions, differential diagnosis, or therapeutic interventions. This book is different than so called “Survival Guides”, because it focuses on the medicine aspect of problems, and less of the direct clinical/hands-on book that reminds you that for chest pain to ask the nurse for vitals, EKG, and chest XR. It’s a great book that actually fits in your white coat that can make you shine on rounds!