Textbook Recommendations

Coghill’s Textbook Review Guide 2021

For me textbooks fall into the following two categories, sometimes the lines might be blurred for a specific chapter of a textbook (see Harriet lane):

1. Helpful point of care resource for information that isn’t nicely laid out online

2. Textbooks for people who like using textbooks (AKA I have money to spend)

Obviously the recommendations will change based on your clinical interests and what kind of things you might be doing in your practice (if you’re not managing fractures then you won’t need a fracture management book), so please take it all with a grain of salt. Also, don’t forget that when you leave here you may not have as many online resources to use so textbooks may become more useful to you. Let me know if you have any suggestions and we can add them to the list (links below – but feel free to get some old used copies, they usually work just as well).

CATEGORY 1 – HELPFUL POINT OF CARE RESOURCE

• Pfenninger and Fowler's Procedures for Primary Care

  • One of the few books that everyone will agree on as a necessity for your early practice. There are a ton of procedures in here and you’ll never know when you need to take out a fish hook and review the various methods for doing so.

• A Practical Guide to Joint & Soft Tissue Injections

  • More concise than pfenninger’s for injections and I think the guidance is much, much better here (pfenninger’s will work in a pinch though). An absolute must for anyone performing joint injections in their practice.

• The Sports Medicine Patient Advisor

  • The best resource out there for simple easy to understand instructions for a ton of different injuries. This blows away the competition in terms of what can be found in epic or online. I routinely use this with my patients and leave a copy in the preceptor room because I am photocopying it so often.

• Derm Books – These can be very expensive and may not be completely necessary for everyone. Take a look in the preceptor room to see which one you like best, it is nice to have some pictures to flip through if you’re stumped on a rash, all of these have some pros and cons and many of you will just prefer Visual Dx Online if you have access.

  • Fitzpatrick’s Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology

  • Dermatology DDx Deck

  • Pediatric Dermatology DDx Deck

  • Habif’s Clinical Dermatology: A color guide to diagnosis and therapy

  • Taylor and Kelly’s Dermatology for Skin of Color

  • Field Guide to Clinical Dermatology

• Wounds and Lacerations: Emergency Care and Closure

  • An incredible resource for wound care. Oh and if you’re not sure what material or USP designation of suture you want to use for that small ear laceration that you feel you can easily close in your office/urgent care, then you probably need this book.

• Fracture Management for Primary Care

  • If you plan on sending any fracture you see to ortho, don’t buy this book. If you plan on doing urgent care or if you want to be able to treat fractures non-operatively and intelligently know when to refer this is a really good resource.

• *American Academy of Pediatrics - Caring For Your Baby and Young Child

  • Dr. Cavanagh has a copy in the preceptor room to check out. Dr. Wren mentioned that this was a really valuable outpatient resource that was recommended to him by a peds resident.

• *The Harriet Lane Handbook

  • A common recommendation for peds resources for those who like using textbooks (most of the info can be found pretty easily using online databases), I use it from time to time for a specific formula recommendation table which is helpful if you take care of infants.

• *Modern Colposcopy Textbook and Atlas (ASCCP)

  • This is definitely way out of date since it was published in 2011 and had just integrated the 2012 ASCCP recommendations, but the pictures could potentially be a nice resource for someone who is doing colposcopy regularly but feels a bit uncomfortable with what they are seeing.

CATEGORY 2 – TEXTBOOKS FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE TEXTBOOKS (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) / AKA I HAVE MONEY TO SPEND $$

• Ultrasound for Primary Care

  • If I had to choose only one textbook for ultrasound it would be this one.

• The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy

  • You could buy the app, but this little book is so cute… and the charts are kind of nice

• PPE Preparticipation Physical Evaluation and ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription

  • Two books recommended highly by Dr. Francis O’Connor, the king of family medicine sports medicine. If you do sports physicals and don’t have the PPE book he will make you feel small.

• Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine

  • For those global health aficionados out there, a nice little handheld resource

• EKG textbooks – These are the only two I’ve read, if anyone else has experience with another one I’d be happy to add it, there are a lot of different approaches to EKGs.

  • Rapid Interpretation of EKGs – last published in 2000 but it’s a consistent favorite of the old timers (some controversy about the author if you want to hear the dirt - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Dubin)

  • The only EKG book you’ll ever need – I’m partial to this one because it’s the way I learned it, but I’ve read the one above as well and it’s a solid resource still.