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Average Customer Rating:

Pediatrics for Dummies and/or Geniuses

Customer Rating:

This is a watered-down version of parent textbook, Nelson's, that is mass published for both lay public and med students and residents. The content is extremely basic at some places but mostly it is very vague and non-detailed. After reading hundreds' pages of this, you come out feeling like you learned nothing really. You turn pages after pages, hoping that maybe after hours of this, you will learn something of pediatrics, but it does not satisfy that hunger. It's so watered down, you come out with a big belly with actually little nutrition. It makes you feel so cheap. It also contains TONS of tables, but the tables were forced upon by whoever published it, not having been created in any useful or practical way. Differential tables will always be flooded with the most rarest genetic diseases (lots of them too) which the book itself will never talk about anywhere. And you have these tables in almost every page in really annoying huge green boxes. The side effects in the tables will display some of the rarest side effects of the drugs, instead of emphasizing the most common, and many tables are referenced to older textbooks or publications dating back to cave times. Even though it's 2002 edition, you get a feeling that whoever wrote it based all the information on their old med school lecture notes from 70s and 80s. The most common and useful information is not emphasized but mixed with the rarest manifestations. The fact that they explain the most basic physiological processes taught in 1st year of med school in many, many pages again shows the effort of this book trying to reach to EVERYBODY of all educational levels. For example, med students will not appreciate reading pages of what 'heart sounds' are. Unlike the millions of totally frustrating tables, any useful figures or graphics are virtually absent. In the process of mass marketing trying to reach both lay public and med students, it ends up reaching nobody. By far, this is the most frustrating, clueless fat textbook you will encounter in med school. Reading this book is like eating a mixture of tiny portions of every single food and meals in the world, all mixed and blended and watered-down into one gooey juice and claiming you know every food of the world. Yuk!!!

Excellent reference book!

Customer Rating:

I work in a Children's Hospital doing inpatient coding. I see the range from infections disease to neurology to neonatal intensive care. This book for me is a the best reference tool for pediatrics. I am able to look up a diagnosis or a disease pathway and get the necessary information in a concise manner. The tables in the book are helpful, too! I am glad I found this book in my daughter's college bookstore.

Neither a review book, nor a reference book.

Customer Rating:

I didn't like this book. It was too big to read during the paediatrics course, but the index didn't contain even the most important topics, so it was impossible to use as a reference book. I kept searching whole chapters to find the spesific subjects I was looking for. In the end I handed it back to the store and bought another book. If you want to read Nelson's paediatrics, buy the original, big book, not this one.

Good for the student, not the resident

Customer Rating:

When I used this book during my pediatric clerkship as a medical student, it proved to be a reliable source of excellent information, seemingly perfectly directed at what most attending ask for during the rounds and conferences. It gives a brief synopsis of pathophysiology, etiology, diagnostic criterion, management and prognosis of all but the rarest pediatric ailments. The well-organized approach makes this one of the ideal books for skimming before an exam, and yet the details provided also afforded much information for those who are preparing for a lecture. Yet for pediatric residents (of which I am currently one), this book proves too superficial. I used it for a few of our monthly exams (when my internship labors gave me too little time to study our bible - NELSON), and I felt that it didn't quite deliver the necessary level. Not enough was mentioned about the syndromes that attendings love to ask about. Overall, though, I love this book. It makes for a good "bathroom read" for both medical student and resident, but where the student can take it back to his desk, the resident should leave it in the bathroom magazine rack for future visits.

Look elsewhere for a well laid out book...

Customer Rating:

This text has the information you need, often in multiple chapters. However, the book is poorly laid out, with long chapters that are hard to get through. For example, in the growth and development chapter, you go from growth charts to theoretical psych in a matter of pages. This makes it difficult to cover material as it is presented in class/clerkship. Hopefully, Rudolph's Fundamentals is better. If not, it's Blueprints all the way!