Pocket Medicine: The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Internal Medicine (Pocket Notebook Series)

Gave this as a Christmas gift to a med. student about to go out on rotations. Greatly appreciated. All present enjoyed reading through it. Fits nicely in a gown pocket for fast reference. Readable by a layperson. Highly recommended.

I'm just amazed that the authors have managed to include so much information in a little handbook.yes the fonts are small but that's the only downside.suitable for both students and residents.highly recommend it.

The font is too small for me, so it makes this book too difficult to be useful. I will take a guess the font is about 4pt or 5pt.

Though one would think that this handbook would contain the pinnacle of organized medical information given its MGH roots, upon using it they would be sorely disappointed.

One major issue with this book is the extreme amount of acronyms present. Though a legend exists explaining the acronyms, it is cumbersome to require the reader to flay to and fro when trying to decipher a statement from the book. Compounding on this problem is the minuscule font size - you'd better have 20/20 vision if you're going to use this manual. The layout is also confusing and ugly, with no real pattern to each page. It looks as if Dr.Sabatine made mini-copies of his personal internal medicine notes and put them up for sale.

I cannot recommend this book to anyone. If you're a medical student on the wards, you're better off reading actual textbooks, like Robbins and Cecil, to understand the material. Books like this will only confuse you - they're a tool for knowing what to order, not a way to learn the material. Residents and attendings would be better served with the Oxford handbook(written in actual prose), the Washington Manual(again, prose though very textually dense), and for the residents that use the metric system - all but those in the USA - the excellent "Approach to Internal Medicine" book by Hui.

Be it outpatient or inpatient, this has TONS of info. You will not be disappointed. Just get it.