Andreoli and Carpenter's Cecil Essentials of Medicine: With STUDENT CONSULT Online Access

A very good clear book, it is made for the student that has just started a course, and would like to have a clear overall view of the material. When I start a course, I would like to have a book that will give me the introduction, and only after I have seen with what I am dealing, I feel prepare enough to read some other much more detailed material. The details are saved for last.
This book is perfect for the introduction, and much more. If you would like to read about the smallest! details I suggest you read the bible of Harrison.
In short: THIS is the book for the med student, it serves as the skeleton ad muscles of the course; for the fat you should consult Harrison.
From my experience, a student should never start reading Harrison.
Cecil essentials serves as a quick review for all the internal med, before and after the exam.
Why 4 and not 5 stars? because i would have liked a more thorough and complete review of neurology.

I really like this book, i am a second year medical student and this book is great so far. I love the charts and the organization it has!

We are using this book and CMDT adn McCance Pathophysiology. I like this text for easy to understand explanations of the different disorders. CMDT does a better job of explaining labs and treatments and has a consistent organization, but can be heavy reading for trying to figure out what are the presenting s/sy of the disease. They are both good companion texts.

I get a hernia when I pick up Harrison's. I've used it twice this year. As a graduating senior, I collected all of my upperclassmen's suggestions of books. Cecil's has a bit more info than I'd like, but it's a readable length if you're not a procrastinator like me! Medwhiz's review is spot on.

Cecil's is extremely well written, and easily understood. It stresses only those topics that graduating seniors absolutely have to have a clue about by graduation, and it doesn't waste too much paper. It's not a pocketbook, but at about half the physical size of Harrison's, it's not easy to carry around, either.

If I had to buy only one book out of Harrison's, Cecil's, NMS, and Blueprints, I'd get Cecil's. It's well worth the money.

I wouldn't recommend this book for people who love photos and graphs. Although it does have some great summative charts, it's pretty wordy. It's great if you only have power points to learn from, though, as it helps fill in lots of missing explanations/details.