Medical Interviews: A Comprehensive Guide to CT, ST & Registrar Interview Skills

This is an excellent book! Used this recently in preparation for academic foundation programme interviews. I know, I know, this book may be slightly more advanced than FY stuff, but it does help you prepare your answers, and encourages you to think and approach things in a different way that would impress your interviewers. This book compiles the experience of interviewers, and gives you model answers, both good and bad, so that you can see which one you should be aiming for.

Like I said, this book may be a tad too advanced, but it never hurts to start early!

Obstetrics and Gynaecology by Impey & Child: "...the only book needed to pass finals in obs and gynae"

"This is a great book...the only book needed to pass finals in obs and gynae" is how the StudentBMJ described this popular textbook. It's certainly no exaggeration, as this book covers every topic in sufficient detail for you to cover your final year objectives in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The book has been hugely successful since it's first publication and the reason is simple. Books are often described as "well written, easy to read and well illustrated", but "Lawrence and Impey" (as you will come to know it!) goes one step further. Every area of O&G for undergraduates is backed up with an introduction to the basic sciences which helps set the scene and the structure of the text encourages a management based approach to learning, which trains you to start to think about how you might manage patients that you are bound to see during your "on call" sessions. You will find the succinct summary boxes peppered throughout the chapters and at the end of chapters invariable when it comes to revising the key topics nearer to exams.

The "Management" sections at the end of the book lay down management approaches to common scenarios encountered in O&G including antenatal bleeding, placenta praevia and cervical cancer. These sections are particularly useful for revising for SBA type questions and OSCE stations.

Another part of the book that I personally found very useful was the section on contraception and family planning which is very well written and serves as a very good reference on the different types of contraception and their various nuances.

This is one of the first books that will be cleared off library shelves within an hour of O&G firms beginning, so it's worthwhile having your own copy to refer to and annotate as you go through your firm. I'll certainly be holding on to my copy for the foreseeable future.

MedStudentBooks Rating: 10/10

Gray's Anatomy for Students (McDreamy recommends!)

More anatomy, this time Gray's Anatomy. Now, this is the one that pretty much everyone will recommend you to buy, and they are right (sort of). It is very well presented, the illustrations are great and it does not come across as wordy as Moore & Dalley. The content is well laid out, the order of things is slightly differently to other anatomy text books (i.e. Moore & Dalley), you'll get used to it quite quickly. Not as wordy as Moore & Dalley, and some of the illustrations are better as well.

George's, some lecturers use this book to make lectures and handouts, so it might be good to have this. Another thing about this textbook is that it is part of the Elsevier publishing company, you will get a code in the book, so you can access the online version of this book and others (provided you buy them first!).

MedStudentBooks rating 8/10

PasTest 300 Single Best Answer Questions for Medical and Surgical Finals

This set of 300 Single Best Answer Questions by Satyen Gohil (or SBAs as you'll come to know them as) are what most medical exams (finals anyway) are made up of these days. It's important to get lots of practice in and this book certainly helps you get started on that front.

It's split in to 2 sections: 1) Scenario-Based questions, 2) Knolwedge-Based Questions. As you can guess, the former are sets of 3 or 4 case based questions. You're usually given a short history and then a number of questions based on investigations, treatment options and pathology (sometimes!) The Knowledge-Based Questions test a whole range of stuff from across the medical curriculum.

The questions on the whole are of a very good standard and act as a good test of your knowledge. Whilst this might not be the first book you buy as a medical student, it certainly will be on you'll be getting to know better nearer finals!

Overall Rating: 9/10

PassMed - Exam revision and tips

So, they teach you clinical skills, and tell you to look out for all these signs i.e. clubbing, you know what it looks like and when to look for them, but what does clubbing mean??? Well, www.passmed.co.uk provides notes on clinical examination (which are excellent) and goes through the common findings which is very helpful!

MedStudentBooks rating 10/10