This book has strong word-of-mouth press, as well as a glowing review from the First Aid book. Its thickness is intimidating, especially for the BRS series, but the pages aren't too dense, so that it can be covered in its entirety in four days or less. Without having compared it to its competitors, I can still say that it does cover just about everything necessary to study pathology. Sometimes the book is a little skimpy on details that, in my own case, were filled in by previous overlapping study through other subjects.

A more substantive complaint is that the book is in dire need of an update: it was published in 1993. For example, the sections on lymphoma classifications and HIV treatment are hopelessly outdated. Along the same lines, the questions at the end of each section and the comprehensive exam at the end don't reflect the current USMLE testing style. For one thing, about 70% of the questions in this book are phrased negatively, as in "all of the following are true, EXCEPT...". For another, many of the questions are quite a bit pickier than my experience with the USMLE step 1 (three days ago).

The book also contains far too few photomicrographs, and those are all black and white, but this can be remedied easily with supplemental materials.

Pathology is one of the hardest and longest subjects in medical school, and when finally you are on the other side thinking you wouldn't dare to take the course again, USMLE comes...... but fortunately, the Lord has inspired this people to write this excellent book. With key essentials, friendly text, excellent organization, handy review questions and a comprehensive exam, I just wish I had this book during my course of pathology. If you don't want to get admitted in a mental institution when reviewing pathology for the USMLE step 1, well....then what are you waiting for buying this book.

This book provides a good outline of pathology by organ systems. Useful as an overview of pathology for medical school classes, and tremendously helpful for Step 1 of the USMLE.

A reliable reference work - I have found it to be very useful and informative. I would rate it alongside Helicon's Political Systems of the World, by Derbyshire and Derbyshire, which looks at the political structures and histories of each of the world's states. The latter is very readable, while the handbook contains a wealth of detail.

If you need to know anything about the world whether it is specific info. about a country or simply general information, this is the prefect reference. is is clearly organized and extremely useful for everything. i highly recommend it!