Basic Concepts in Pharmacology: A Student's Survival Guide

Rating:
Summary: Concise but skimpy and out of date
Review: I have found this handy guide a great way to quickly get a grasp of lecture topics. It only takes minutes to understand the concepts, and saves valuable time by catagorizing the drug types for you. Stringer's style of writing in a conversation format is easy to read, enjoyable, and concise. In fact, I'm purchasing my own copy because it's too hard to find in the library anymore!

Rating:
Summary: Great source to get the "skinny" on pharmacology
Review: I have found this handy guide a great way to quickly get a grasp of lecture topics. It only takes minutes to understand the concepts, and saves valuable time by catagorizing the drug types for you. Stringer's style of writing in a conversation format is easy to read, enjoyable, and concise. In fact, I'm purchasing my own copy because it's too hard to find in the library anymore!

Rating:
Summary: Good first read
Review: This book is great for the adrenergics and cholinergics. In other areas it is a good foundation, but you need to fill in the details. It gives good suggestions on name recognition - which is invaluable in pharm. It is worth the money, but you can't use it as your only source. It is an excellent building block though.

Rating:
Summary: Concise but skimpy and out of date
Review: This is a very useful book for someone who needs a quick pharmacology review for the USMLE step 1 exam. It can be studied in its entirety within two days, but cementing all the information in long-term memory will require returning to it frequently during the course of study.

Stringer's casual student-oriented style helps put the nervous reader at ease and builds confidence while studying, a rarity in review books which are more likely on one of the two polar extremes of intimidating or condescending. The sheer mass of detail can be overwhelming in pharmacology as well, and Stringer is also very helpfully pragmatic in emphasizing which details are important for the student to learn the first time around, and which can be saved for a second pass through the material.

Pharmacology books become obsolete quickly, and, like most others, this one needs an update. For example, it covers only sulfonyl ureas, not even mentioning the three newer classes of diabetes drugs.

Stringer reminds the reader constantly that her book is not complete, and that it should be supplemented by other material, and she's right. At times its coverage is a bit skimpy, especially on side effects, and it has little discussion about recent trends in treatment options (e.g., that barbiturates are being phased out in favor of the less toxic benzodiazapines). Still it's an excellent starting point and emphasizes well what's most important versus what's less so.

One minor quibble is that the editing on this book needs to be tighter - there are quite a few grammatical errors, such as confusing the contraction "it's" with the possessive "its". But this is a minor quibble over a book that is an excellent starting point for reviewing pharmacology for the USMLE step 1.