good

The last few months have been spent working towards one singular and unifying goal - to read this textbook from cover to cover. Embarking on such a quest meant that my self-identify became defined and solidified between its crusty hardback pages. I took it on buses, trains, and then (perhaps a little egotistically) on a plane journey to South East Asia and back. Maybe because of this the end has crept up on me and it's unasatisfying. All that being said, and after all I (we) went through, I hold a fantastically tender affection twards Robbins, and Cotran, and whoever-the-hell-else decided to contribute to this beast.

As a faraway colleague, Hattie, pointed out when she read it a year ago (also for her Part 1 exam, and also "not for fun:): "Swathes of this are unbelievably dry, and it will suddenly reward you for traversing the desert with an absolute gem of a sentence."

Here are some of my (additional) favourites:

“Tattooing is a form of localised, exogenous pigmentation of the skin. The pigments inoculated are phagocytoses by dermal macrophages, in which they reside for the remainder of the life of the embellished ✨”

"When hygiene fails, diarrhoeal disease becomes rampant"

On acne: “androgens were first implicated [in the development of acne] in times past when it was noted that young castrated males generally did not develop the condition (a questionable tradeoff).”

At the other end lie patients with pure chronic bronchitis, ingloriously referred to as “blue bloaters”

“It is not necessary to detail Mendel’s law here, since every student in biology, and possibly every garden pea, has learned about them at an early age”

“The prevalence of endemic African Kaposi's Sarcoma is inversely related to the wearing of shoes” (this one included just because this one blew my mind in the late witching hallucinatory evening hours)

Medicina: 4to año.

A review of the 9th edition, 2015, edited by Kumar, Abbas, Aster.

Warning, spoilers ahead: it's a textbook about the pathologic basis of human disease! *gasp*

Many years have passed since the conception of this magnum opus of Dr. Stanley Robbins', yet so constant was this textbook in it's primary content that the last time someone (Dr Robbins himself, actually) added a chapter was in 1967 - Genetic Diseases, or rather, more accurately known as 'that chapter most doctors skip'. So sturdy are the facts dispensed by this work of genius, that in a typical argument amongst medicos, the first person who quotes Robbins will be awarded with a defeated silence from the rest.

I read Robbins as a student, hated it; I read Robbins as an intern; tolerated it. Still reading Robbins now, as a practicing clinician; my exams depend on it. I must admit, for a textbook that engulfs the lives of many a medical professional like terminal cancer, it also operates as a guardian angel where basic pathology is concerned. I guess this textbook has....'grown' on me. (Ba dum tss)

As I plough on it's labyrinthine chapters, the voice of Robbins in my head is that of an old British professor, ever austere in the delivery of it's endless lectures, with (to the delight of it's readers or 'students') occasional punctures of appalling wit and sarcasm. An example - note a rather snarky take on mankind's failure of attaining immortality as an opening to a chapter on cell death, and that 'individuals age because their cells age'. Duh? (page 66, chapter 2)

Such was the influence of Robbins in my life, that I now use sunscreen religiously upon discovering the pathogenesis behind skin malignancies, and sent a significant number of stubborn cockroaches to their deaths.. although the latter is more of an appreciation to the physical robustness of this tome (translate that as - even if you don't read Robbins, it's good to have a full edition handy - it passes as a reliable weapon!)

Remember this before you flip that preface: This book will break you or make you, kids. Embrace the darkness of Robbins, and you will see the light at the end of the tunnel (i.e your exams).

Favourite quote:
'It appears that almost everything one does to earn a livelihood or for pleasure is fattening, immoral, illegal, or, even worse, carcinogenic!' (page 278, Chapter 7)

*And to think, my first book review on any platform whatsoever, is that of a textbook I have a love-hate relationship with. Oh well.

One of my favorite books in medical school. This book embodies everything one needs to know about diagnosing and treating disease, as well as how it works at a molecular and physiological level.

Crap, dude.

Good

A classic core textbook for a reason. If you want to know pathology, this is the place to start.

name a disease--there's anywhere from 2-50 pages on it in this book. Sometimes I read it just for fun. Mostly, though, I read because I have homework.

books i read for med school helping me complete my goodreads goal

It sucked nights in a row, but also helped a lot!

Amazing piece of literature to study Pathology but it is too time consuming.