Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
 Not THAT bad.... October 21, 2009
Saxofrog (TX)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm an '09 pedi residency grad who just took the board exam this past week. Having been pleased with my inservice exam scores, I didn't feel the pressure to sign up for an expensive, intensive review course, nor to spend all my waking hours studying for the exam. That, coupled with the paucity of excellent pedi board review material, led me to use this book in my studying efforts.
Other than the name of one bacterium (Moraxella) and the ideal test for CGD, I found few factual errors. The material was high yield, and several of the bullet points were on my exam. I don't know if Silverstein actually spent time looking at the exam's content specs, but he certainly knew which material had been frequently asked. For example, there are always questions about epiglottitis and rabies, and he nailed what I needed to know.
As for the mnemonics (not just those related to the lungs, as one reviewer seems to imply): None of them were as clever or memorable as the ones in that microbiology book we all still quote, and there were few illustrations to help me lock a picture into my head. The majority seemed forced and awkward. But it's hard to make a good mnemonic for someone else's mind.
So on the whole, it was a good read the week or two before the exam, after I had been through as many PREP questions as I could handle. High yield, not heavy reading.
A few last comments I have to make:
1. Despite lauding a former reader for helping make many changes, it appears that neither said reader, the author, nor anyone in the print-setting process know the appropriate punctuation for a sentence which contains a coordinating conjunction and two independent clauses.
2. As Dr. Silverstein aptly points out, medicine is trying to move away from the term "Reiter's syndrome." Given the history (which he notes), why would an author with such a Semitic surname not be inclined to title the section "reactive arthritis" and give the footnote with the explanation?
3. For the love of God, the comma/period/question mark goes BEFORE the close quotation marks, not after.
 Way too many errors... October 12, 2009
B. P. Agrawal
I bought this book to take my pediatric boards on the recommendation of several of my co-residents. While the book does a good job of outlining the high-yield topics that you will encounter on the boards, the actual information it provides is not reliable. Several times I encountered errata and had to corroborate the information in Nelson's Textbook of Pediatrics. Additionally, there were so many instances of words misspelled that it became very clear to me that this book was not well edited. Apparently some of the mistakes were even present in previous editions of the book. So for me, going through this book, I did not feel confident that I could trust the information being presented. Definitely annotate this book with your own notes if you do buy it.
 Do not buy this book! September 13, 2009
Jessica Lindsay
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
While I don't have another recommendation of how to study for this test, this book is terrible. It does not teach you anything, just gives countless pneumonics to remember different diseases. It is not funny. There has been no laughing. Mostly just frustration that I spent a fortune on it and have little to show for it.
 Very entertaining July 13, 2009
Carlos Mumtaz (Cleveland, OH)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Although I thought there are certain topics left off; for the most part I think important covered with emphasis on the important fact only.
The book is well written, in a humerous was, so not only you wouldn't get bored of reading it but will remember facts that written in funny ways for the exam.
 excellent, easy to follow June 10, 2009
Marcela Cristea (Phoenix, AZ USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
easy to follow, able to quickly review a lot of material in a relatively short amount of time.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
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