Pocket Medicine: The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Internal Medicine (Pocket Notebook Series) Sixth, North American Edition

I'm not normally a fan of "paper books" (I prefer PDFs and the UpToDate app), but this little book is the exception to my rule. I can't speak to the use of it as an IM resident (I imagine it would be even more useful intern year), but at the MS3 level I found it to be incredibly helpful for when I was pressed for time and was seeing a patient with a problem that I hadn't seen before. Sure, I could spend 20-40 minutes reading UTD articles that go into way more detail than I need to know, or I could flip to the cardiology section and read the 1.5 pages over that topic and be golden. Plus, you don't have to feel bad "being on your phone" during rounds.Cons/reservations:- if at all possible, find someone with the book already and take a look. I found the abbreviations & small text to be useful (it made me learn the lingo of IM more quickly), but some people are put off by the style- it can be hard to navigate at first, given the depth of coverage. I found it useful to but the little post-it note tabs (that you can use when annotating books) for each section, but even then it takes me a little longer to find the correct section vs just searching UTD/the internetPros:- concise yet very comprehensive; able to answer most of my questions once I could find the page- small enough to fit in my back scrub pocket (and serve as a clip board for my notes if you use 0.3mm pens)- after a month or so I could "visualize" where topics are in the book, and look them up really fast- because it's looseleaf w/ a binder, you can remove certain pages and re-order the book based on your needs (wouldn't recommend for general IM, but was advantageous when I was on specialty rotations)OVERALL: I don't normally write reviews, but I have regret that I didn't buy this book earlier in my rotation. When I started IM I looked at the reviews on Amazon, and delayed buying this book because I thought it might be more detail than I needed at the MS3 level. So if you're reading this and you're having the same feeling, save yourself the misery and go ahead and pull the trigger on this book

I have been using Pocket Medicine since being a wee little OMS-3. I can tell you that this thing has been the most amazing reference book in my life. I've seen them all (Washington Manual, UCSF's hospitalist handbook, the ICU book, etc). I'll be honest, being an attending, I've been using uptodate more now than this book but as a medical student/resident, this book is amazing. What makes this book such an amazing reference is that they actually write down the article/journal that they are referencing to if you wish to expand your knowledge base with the original research.I've known the details of this series for many years. See my older reviews on Pocket Medicine to see what I think about the series. Again, for the newcomers, welcome to medicine and if you're looking for a reference book, this shall be your bible. The style is that same Pocket Medicine style with lots of abbreviations, and references. If you are having trouble figuring out what that abbreviation is in the book, check the back of the book. If you can get a copy off your colleague, I recommend taking a look first before jumping the gun and buying it without looking at how this is written. I've seen people be put off by the style and so I recommend doing this first if you're completely unfamiliar with the series. Before, I would be searching things very fast on this book. But given the speed of the uptodate app on my phone, I'll admit I haven't been using this little buddy as much. The pocket book fits in any white coat.Now I will present changes/differences:New sections (not all inclusive): Cardiac Rhythm Management Devices, Toxicology, Lung Transplant, Dysmotility and Nutrition, Disorders of Colon, Intestinal Ischemia. Some of these were renamed sections. I haven't used the book enough to tell you if these changes make a difference if you're thinking about upgrading from purple.New references: qSOFA for sepsis, cardiac risk assessment tables has been slightly simplified (although the basics are the same), JNC 8 is in the book. The controversial lipid guidelines from AHA are in the book now. Ophthalmic issues section has been changed a lot (I liked the purple version better but maybe its because I'm just used to it).Dislikes: the book I bought uses a more similar flimsy paper as in the purple version. I miss the paper they used in green. But what I was really MAD about is that the publisher didn't do a good job at screening the hole punches and it was hole punched slightly off and now the first couple pages have already ripped out. I'm very unhappy about this but I did not subtract a star as the rating is about the content.Bottomline: it's the same old pocket medicine you love and see your colleagues use. Is it worth upgrading? absolutely not. Will I stop buying future issues? I'm thinking this may be the last one I upgrade as I probably use uptodate more often now as an attending but I can appreciate all of the information that is needed to update this little book. Again, borrow one to see if you like the style before buying this.Again, like all of my previous reviews: I didn't get paid by Dr Sabatine or Wolters Kluwer for this review.Also a moment of silence for my purple version. RIP my battered and time tested purple version, RIP.

Great during the wards. If you are not sure how to interpret lab values or how to do a workup for a particular patient it is a great reference to see what the cut offs are. It is great for both diagnostic workup and treatment. If you are going to get pimped or asked to give a presentation you can always fall back on this book or the references they provide. It is a great summary, if you do not have equations memorized or if your institution does not have uptodate for you to look up a concept/do not have time to read an article. It is also faster than looking through pubmed and NEJM for a review article explaining the topic as it is a great summary of important points. It is light. It also comes with the hardcover sleeve and if needed the book can accomdate more pages so if you want to add other loose leafs you can. I am not sure how different this is from the previous purple book. I carried that one around and it had similar pages and organization. The purple book a borrowed from a friend. There are a few new references from 2013 onwards that were not in the purple book. I will update the review when I do an actual side to side comparison.

Great seller, good product, great price!