Surgery Books for Pre PG Medical Entrance

Of late I am getting many mails / phone calls about books to read for Surgery. Hope this list is useful

1. Surgical Short cases by Das has those High Yielding topics covered in great detail . If you have gone through this book once (it will take just 20 hours to read it and revise it) you will not miss a single question from Neck, Hernai, hydrocele, scrotum, swellings, arteries veins and lymphatics etc which are all high yielding topics

You can read the BIG books also no doubt, but this book saves as lot of time for you, as it gives the information available in ALL THE BIG books in relation to that topic

2. Sabiston pretest(pretext) is a small (compared to Scwartz Pretext) book that can be completed in one day (12 hours) and you will be surprised at the way certain points (which were taking a lot of brain power right from your first clincial days) are made simple

3. Schwartz pretest gained "SUPER STAR STATUS" as 20 question were repeated "verbatim" in AI PG 2002

4. Pathology from BIG Robbins will help you answer more Surgery Questions than you anticipate

5. Make sure that you know which tumours need Radiation, what Chemo radiation and what all Radical Surgery from Bailey. There is a book called TUMOURS in SARP Series

6. Go through the operative Surgery procedures of the common surgeries like Hernia, Billroth, thyroid, neck dissection, and be sure about what you will remove and what you will preserve in Selective, Highly selective, radical, modified radical, sub,hemi, total etc. The various procedures for Arteries and Veins and Lymphatics and the timing for Surgery for Paediatric cases like Tongue tie cleft palate/lip, hypospadiasis(for this you will have more than 4 answers, as we found out after AI 2003 when this question was asked) are all important

7. Now a days questions are also asked from Clinical Examination, and though those question are usually easy ones, if you have finished your MBBS more than 2 years ago, please have a rapid revision of the case taking of atleast the important topics (especially the tests for Cervical Rib, Varicose Veins etc - Also Given in Short Cases Das)

8. Go through the Bailey and Love 22nd Edition also

Surgery (and to a certain extent orthopaedics, ENT and Opthal and Micro) is a Relatively easier subject to prepare for a PG Medical Entrance Exam like All India. You need to read the subject thoroughly for exams like PGI, AIIMS etc but for other exams the basics is enough. Preparing the basics will cost you a small note book and less than 50 hours totally(If you are reading 8 hours per day it is just one week) Once you have prepared the basics, you can attempt 80 % of the question with confidence and the person who prepares extensilvely will get just 2 or 3 questions more than you(which is important only in AIIMS and PGI etc and important if you are aiming for Institutes/MD Radio/MS orthopaedics MD Paed etc)

And in the unlikely case when the question gets tough, every one will be caught !!! and it is unlikely that you will loose your rank.

But subjects like Anatomy, Biochemistry, Pathology, Obstetrics etc and Medicine and Paediatrics are a different story altogether. In these subjects you have to prepare thoroughly as here when the questions are tougher, you can attempt only 30 % and there will be certain people who had read these subject books with much interests (like us reading novels)or they might have got some extra ordinary teachers in their UG days and they will manage 75 % and the rank list will be greatly altered. And in this regard, I rank Biochemistry and Psychiatry as the greatest "upset - causers"

Few Years ago in TNPSC Exam for recruitment of Doctors to Government service, a significant amount of question were asked from Psychiatry (which were a bit tough) and all those who had finished MD Psy, DPM, and those who weer DPM at that time qualified. In the past even though there were tough questions in other subjects it never caused such a upset because in subjects like FM, Micro, SPM every one will answer 70 %