Pocket Clinical Examination

N J Talley and S O'Connor
Blackwell Science, 1998; £12.95
ISBN 0632051523
  

This small concise pocket book is another offspring of Talley and O'Connor's Clinical Examination (1996). At first glance it seems to be oversimplistic, but persistent readers will realise that this is where its value lies. Divided into chapters on different systems of the body, it goes through each clinical examination with advice on how to carry out procedures and what is being looked for by attentive clinicians, and it offers student friendly ways of learning. A prime example is the 6 F's for remembering the causes of a distended abdomen. Not content with the 5 F's mentioned elsewhere it follows "fetus, fat, fluid, faeces, and flatus" with "filthy great tumour."

Each chapter has simple yet understandable pictures, text neatly tucked away in systematic boxes or tables, and a concluding summary that emphasises key points to remember in the ward or during an examination.

Written as if inside the mind of a medical student it closes with a concise version of how each system is examined in point form, which is of value to mature medical students putting the finishing touches to their clinical competence or those refreshing themselves after a year spent doing an intercalated degree.

Its downside is chiefly the bile green cover, but this should not be held against a book that is a valuable source to medical students from their first to their fifth year and, at £12.95, a true bargain.

This book should stay resident in the white coat, along with used tissues, loose change, and chewing gum wrappers, throughout everyone's undergraduate medical career and acts as the perfect balancing act to the Oxford Clinical Handbook in the other pocket.

Ian Bickle, third year medical student, Queen's University of Belfast


studentBMJ 2000;08:89-130 April ISSN 0966-6494