Things to buy for Finals

Textbooks

Medicine

The level of knowledge required is less than you think. Big Kumar and Clark is not what is required: the level of detail in this book is far too high. High quality concise texts that contain the right level of detail include:

• Saunders' Pocket Essentials of Clinical Medicine. This is an excellent book which is very widely used. Essentially a summary of big Kumar and Clark, it has clear explanations and the right level of detail for finals. A new edition was released in 2007 and so for the 07/08 finals it will be one of the most up-to-date textbooks on the market. Students have found that this book covers abut 75-80% of their curriculum. It could only be improved by including chapters on surgery or the specialities (see below): the day this happens all other medical books for students will be rendered obsolete and so the authors regularly receive death threats from fearful medical publishers. 
• Medicine at a glance. A similar book with more emphasis on pictures. Also very good.
• Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine. May be used as a core textbook, but be selective what you learn. It is however essential to buy but more as a reference text.

Other useful textbooks include:

• Medicine Recall. Is a comprehensive american book in a question and answer format that might suit your revision style. Its very good for dipping and out of. This book is part of a series - the original being Surgical Recall.
• Essential MCQs for Medical Finals , and EMQs for Medical Students . Note my comment  on the fact that it is not necessary to practice too many of these questions as the same subjects may well not come up in your exam.

Clinical examination

• Medicine, passing the clinical . This book takes common long and short cases and goes through the clinical features, as well as some common investigations. Although all of this information is in regular textbooks it is presented in a format that is easy to learn.
• Medical Short Cases for Medical Students . A similar format of book that goes in to more detail, as it was originally an MRCP revision book. Invaluable if you have many short cases in your finals. It is a bit overwhelming for the medical student and it contains more knowledge than you probably need to know.A useful feature is the introductory paragraph which tells you the words to use to present each case - examiners will love you for this.

Surgery

Much less surgery is now required than was previously. It is important to talk to people from previous years to establish what is required of you.

• Surgical Talk. An excellent book and a joy to read. A good strategy would be to learn the essentials from this book and if you think more is needed supplement this with another textbook. It is likely this is all the detail you will need. This book also contains touches of finals philosophy, giving information on how to approach answering questions and learning medicine.
• Lecture Notes in General Surgery. This book is very comprehensive and often recommended to students. However surgery in most curricula has decreased a lot and so the surgeons recommending it to you had to know much more than you do, hence this books probably contains much too much. 

ECG interpretation

• The ECG Made Easy. It really does make it easy. Many doctors have grown up on this book.

Radiology interpretation

• Chest XR Made Easy. Similar layout as the ECG book and also very readable.
• Lecture Notes in Radiology. Lots of relevant pictures and explanations.

The specialities

• Psychiatry:  Psychiatry at a Glance is a concise, readable book and the right level for finals.
• Obstetrics and Gynaecology:  Obstetrics and Gynaecology (Impey) is a joy to read but too mich information for finals. Unless you know your medical school has lots of Obs and Gyn then it is something to glance at.
• Paediatrics
• Haematology:  Haematology at a Glance is my recommended text.
• ENT
• Ophthalmology
• Dermatology: Dermatology: an Illustrated Text (Gawkroger) has plenty of pictures and the right level of knowledge.

Equipment

Necessary

• A tendon hammer. Buy 2 because you will lose one of them.
• A pen torch
• Orange stick. This mysterious piece of equipment is essentially a lollipop stick used for eliciting the plantar reflex. It actually works well, and is less disgusting than your finger.

Consider buying

• PDA/smartphone to keep books on.
• Clipboard: useful, though you might feel like a geek.
• Ophthalmoscope/otoscope. Expensive, may be useful. Might be better to make friends with somebody who owns one or go to a few clinics.

There are many places to buy this equipment. In the highstreet your best bet is a medical bookshop. On the internet we have bought from MediSave without any problems in the past (we have no affiliation with them).