Surgery: PreTest Self Assessment and Review (Pretest Series) (Paperback)

Written with a reckless disregard for the actual content of most surgery clerkships and of the Shelf exam, this book seems to assume students have completed both a surgical residency and numerous subspecialty fellowships. Many questions deal with fine points of surgical management that are not tested on the Shelf. (Know much about chemotherapeutic treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma confined to the submucosa of the stomach?) Others have multiple correct answers or irritating "trap" answers of limited educational value (does this tumor have 70% or 80% 1-year survival?). Answer key sometimes seems off-topic or illogical (patient in question has MEN II, but answer assumes MEN I) or fails to directly address the question. If you have limited time to study--and I know you do--you would be better off looking elsewhere, for example to the questions in Lawrence's Essentials of Surgery. And keep in mind that the surgery Shelf is notoriously heavy on medicine.