Haematology at a Glance
Atul B Mehta and A Victor Hoffbrand
Blackwell Science Inc, 2000; £13.95
ISBN: 0632047933
Rating: 2/4
Textbooks get you honours. I am convinced that the vast majority of
students can pass even final medical
exams without any recourse to books. They
certainly don't need reference to those
weighty tomes that seem only ever to be
found on dusty shelves in medical school
libraries. Perhaps the odd vade mecum such
as the Oxford Handbook of Medicine and the
British National Formulary are almost essential to a good student, but people pass exams
without them.
The "At a Glance" series has always
been a valuable addition to the bookshelf of
the average student. They should tell you
everything you need to know, and nothing
that you don't. They should be the books
that we all turn too the night before the
exam. Remember that stage you get to
when you have learnt about acid-base
balance so many times that you can't even
remember whether H+ ions make your pH
go up or down any more? It should be the
"At a Glance" books which reassure you
with one simple diagram that in reality you
do know what you are up to and that it is
time to get to the pub before you confuse
yourself any further.
That's where this book fails. It contains a
great page with comparative diagrams of
red cell abnormalities and some useful
clinical photographs, and the quality of the
micrographs reproduced throughout the
text is superb. There are some useful "night
before" questions (and answers) in the back,
which you could use either on you own or
on those evenings when you've got together
with some friends but can't really be
bothered to do anything too strenuous. But
there is almost nothing "At a Glance" about
the rest of this book. Over 15 pages on
anaemia and nearly 20 pages on haematological malignancy seems excessive to me.
Some pages have hardly any illustrations,
and the simple colour line drawings, which
are the most attractive part of any book in
this series, are fewer and further between
than normal.
The book is not bad - the text is
informative and well explained, but this is
more than "At a Glance" - this is too much.
This is a comprehensive guide to a lot more
than a medical student needs to know, and
for that reason if no other, it disappoints.
Nick Jenkins, fourth year medical student, Imperial College School of Medicine
Email: n.jenkins@ntlworld.com
studentBMJ 2000;08:395-434 November ISSN 0966-6494
