Robbins & Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease

I actually purchased this book just for my pathology exams but after using it so much, I've grown quite accustomed to it's layout and content. I use it to learn about just about anything I can find in there before consulting more specialized books because it's very good at briefly explainig a disease and, most importantly, the mechanisms behind it, which many other works just glance over. The illustrations and photograzphs are to the point and don't take up too much space and the histiological photographs were enough for me to learn histology just using Robbins and Cotran. Even if English isn't your native language as is my case, I recommend you use this book, not only for it's scientific and didactic qualities but for improving your understanding of clinical english as well.

(Updated for perspective as a now-second year medical student) As a first year medical student, I have found Robbins a wonderful textbook for fundamentals of disease processes as well as pathology of the organ systems. (And this is coming from someone who has found medical textbooks too dense and dry to use as primary resources for courses so far. ) Robbins is the "required" pathology textbook at my medical school; I say "required" because every year, class surveys indicate almost no one uses the book, relying instead on course notes and review books. At the urging of my old-school trained father, I decided to buck the trend — and having read multiple chapters of the Robbins, I am shocked that past classes have foregone the text. For one, this is a very well organized book — in fact, it is better organized than our course note packets/syllabi. The figures and tables are high-yield, but the text itself is so well written and full of useful information and examples that I have never felt exhausted reading through it. Because of this, I think Robbins is a practical primary resource to learn MS-1 and MS-2 material. (I would not say the same for similarly massive textbooks "required" for our other courses so far, like Goodman and Gilman's for pharmacology. I found that and other texts so dense and dry that I've only used them as references in the library, and even then only rarely. Instead, like most med students these days, I often turn to review books to clarify concepts that are confusing in lecture.) So what have I gained by reading this thing? I've noticed that my understanding of disease features has increased substantially. The basic pathological processes covered in Robbins are common to so many diseases that cases presented in grand rounds I attend, as well as clinical asides during lectures, make much more sense. Even when I don't understand them, I can at least grasp explanations I look up because the basics always come up. Here I will list the "fundamentals" chapters I have read and found useful. • Chapter 1 is an overview of cell biology, setting the stage for the rest of the book. I bought this book after finishing my cell biology course, so I largely skipped this chapter. However, it would probably be a great way to gain a basic understanding of cellular mechanisms if you have less background in cell biology, or even as a resource during a cell biology course. • Chapter 2 covers cell injury and death. Apoptosis and necrosis are the focuses of the chapter, and the discussion is quite detailed. The basic paths leading to cell injury and death are critical to understanding much of the rest of the book and diseases in general. Great reference or primary source. • Chapter 3 gets into more core disease processes: inflammation and repair. Again, excellent text and summary tables/figures. From my perspective as an MS-1, probably one of the most useful chapters as far as laying down important fundamentals. • Chapter 4 is a little more narrowed, discussing hemodynamics, thrombosis, and infarction. These topics come up all the time (MI, stroke, emboli...), so it's satisfying to understand the material. And despite the complexity of the chapter (coagulation is complicated), it's still quite readable. Some other great chapters cover immunology, infection, neoplasia, genetic disorders, and vascular disorders (that chapter leads right into the heart pathology chapter). All of them are useful, although I would say they need not be read all the way through like the fundamentals chapters. For example, I have some cancer biology background, so I read selected portions of the neoplasia chapter. Same goes if you have background in immuno, microbio, etc. Together, they give a strong foundation for understanding specific diseases. Overall, highly recommended for use as a primary resource or reference text during the preclinical years. Update: Our exam for the pathology course was an NBME shelf exam. With the help of Robbins, I aced it with a 94%, beating the class mean by over 1.5 standard deviations. Seriously, the foundations and understanding of disease mechanism you gain from this book are worth your time. Update 2: Thoughts now that I'm a second-year. Robbins is still excellent, and I still consider it the definitive authority when other resources seem to disagree with each other. If you have the time, reading Robbins will expose you to a wider range of pathology than you'll learn about in your organ systems courses. I mean, there's a lot of pathology out there, and med school curricula really can't spend time on all of it. If you have a particular area of interest or feel your course isn't giving a good representation of a certain system's pathologies, crack open Robbins and enlighten yourself. The downside is that using Robbins for every organ system is nigh-impossible. This is a behemoth text, and in the midst of frantically speeding through organ systems while also stressing about retaining high-yield material for the boards, it might fall lower on your priorities list vs. stripped down review resources like Pathoma. It is a textbook, after all. I used Robbins early in the year but found myself using it less over time as our courses became shorter (physiology-heavy courses like cardiology afforded enough time; 2-3 week courses in some other subjects were way too rapid-fire to allow for it). A couple of my classmates continue to doggedly read through each chapter, although sometimes this can become a little martyr-ish (check out the 150+ page gastrointestinal/hepatobiliary segment). I'd suggest using it as time allows, then just using it as a reference as needed. Curating resources is critical in medical school considering the firehose of information and similar stacks of books available.

Another updated and excellent edition of Robbins. Chapter on, The cell as a unit of health and disease is an excellent intro, since we all need to refresh our knowledge and memory on basic intracellular processes from time to time. I will not spend more words on this because we all know that Robbins is a gold standard in basic pathology and everyone who reads from this book once will probably stick to it forever. Something like Mercedes in pathology textbook collection :)

It's good book but you should stick to h Mohan because during a year you can not cover it in time

Useful resource for structuring teaching sessions. A great book for learning the basics of medicine