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I need advise on textbooks


tylaughter

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I am a paramedic student and I am looking for some guidence in regards to textbooks. I have successfully completed didactic and clinicals, and I am preparing to start my field internship.

My question for you instructors is....Are there any good textbooks that you would recommend that come in one book? And how recently was it published? We were required to purchase the brady series of books, but unfortunately it is a total of 5 books. I am looking for something a little more portable, preferably in one book that I can carry with me at all times while at work and on ride-alongs.

Any advise is appreciated!

P.S. any advice on where I could sell my Brady books?

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There is the one giant Mosby (Bledsoe) Paramedic book

It depends what you are looking for in a book, if you want a skills manual it is probably fine, if you want to learn the nuances of medicine applicable to whatever problem you are treating it's rubbish

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I am a paramedic student and I am looking for some guidence in regards to textbooks. I have successfully completed didactic and clinicals, and I am preparing to start my field internship.

My question for you instructors is....Are there any good textbooks that you would recommend that come in one book? And how recently was it published? We were required to purchase the brady series of books, but unfortunately it is a total of 5 books. I am looking for something a little more portable, preferably in one book that I can carry with me at all times while at work and on ride-alongs.

Any advise is appreciated!

P.S. any advice on where I could sell my Brady books?

I used the same books and while they are great texts, we didnt use 2 of them at all. I sold mine on Ebay.

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Paramedic emergency care by Bledsoe is an older single large volume. I also liked mcgraw-hill EMT-Paramedic. It's got practice questions and a test. It's kinda like paramedic cliff notes. And I purchased both for under 50 shipped from amazon used.

Fireman1037

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In our paramedic class we have the Nancy Caroline Emergency Care in the Streets, Sixth edition. You can get it as one full hardcover (Huge brick or weapon) or sets. I think some places if you order them it comes with the Hardcover and a workbook which is helpful when studying. The only other thing though worth mentioning about this is, the Seventh Edition should be coming out next year I believe. So far this book as been pretty up to date besides ACLS and AHA guide lines being old . Great book in my opinion, I have a link to the hardcover from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Nancy-Carolines-Emergency-Streets-Sixth/dp/0763729078

I would recommend getting it "used in good condition" because it will be a heck of a lot cheaper.

Oh correction the Seventh Edition volume 1 is out but volume 2 will be out in the spring of 2012. So I guess the seventh is going to be two books so I don't know how helpful that will be to you as of right now with it being two books and the 2nd volume coming out in spring.

Edited by Zablackw
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It's a little large but Emergency Medicine: A Comprehensive Study Guide is far and away the best resource I've ever used. Not only does it cover what can be done in the field it's inclusive enough that you will gain an understanding of what treatments patients will receive after hospital arrival.

http://www.mcgrawhill.ca/professional/products/0071484809/

My other suggestion would be a Professional Guide to Diseases. It's a little less cumbersome than the first text I mentioned but also excellent.

http://www.lww.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product__11851_-1_9012051_Prod-9780781778992

If you ever wish to refine your physical exam process I would suggest Bates' Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking.

http://www.lww.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product__11851_-1_9012051_Prod-9780781780582

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It's a little large but Emergency Medicine: A Comprehensive Study Guide is far and away the best resource I've ever used. Not only does it cover what can be done in the field it's inclusive enough that you will gain an understanding of what treatments patients will receive after hospital arrival.

This book is God; even Consultant Emergency Physicians I know pretty much live and die by what it says :D

Note: That book may not actually be God but Kiwi may and/or may not be a Consultant Emergency Physician ....

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I kinda' see where people are going with this. Strictly from a paramedic text perspective I don't think the suggestions have been all that bad. From a medicine perspective, however, one book just isn't going to cut it... certainly not one book that is portable enough to carry with you everywhere you go.

The Current Diagnosis and Treatment series of books is good. It's a little more in depth than what a prehospital provider will need. But the content is excellent and will have you planning and providing your care in line with what's going to happen in the hospital.

Tintinalli's Emergency Medicine is a good book.

The previously mentioned Bates guide is also excellent.

None of the books mentioned so far are excessively portable. But that's the nature of medicine. There is so much out there that dozens of multivolume texts can be written on any given topic.

Don't sell your Brady books. Keep them. They can serve as a reference for you for now. What's more, you're not done school yet. So why sell your books before you're done?

Good luck with the rest of your program.

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May I suggest a spelling and grammar book ?  If your PCRs look anything like what you typed above, you will have issues.  Not trying to be mean, but your reports are legal documents, and when you go to court with a report that is as bad as what you typed above the lawyers will eat you alive.  

I would strongly suggest you purchase "used" on amazon or other college text book sites as mentioned above.  Any medical textbook will be ridiculously priced when brand new.

Edited by hatelilpeepees
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I'm dismayed.

The reason I say this is that many of the EMT/Medic students I have had the pleasure/displeasure of meeting and precepting have all asked a similar type of question. They are wanting to get the more advanced books that give a broader explanation of disease process, medical issues and basically what medical school texts they should be using to broaden their horizons and base knowledge on.

What I have seen consistently is that the students don't really have a firm grasp on the basics that their paramedic textbook or EMT textbook's are trying to give them.

I put this back on two causes, instructors who do not have much in the arsenal of what a real teacher is and students who want it all given to them on a silver platter. The current texts are good in the material that they teach and you gotta get the basics and base of education down before you start the medical school texts.

Some of the instructors that my students are under are fire-medics who are teaching the paramedic curriculum directly out of the book and not prodding the students to learn. They don't have the knowledge of learning styles and the understanding of what makes a student learn one way over another, they simply teach it cookie cutter and expect all their students to learn that exact same way.

So we of course have students who are not prepared for the rigors of patient contact in an ALS capacity yet can quote obscure medical conditions and treatments that they will only encounter once or twice in a career. They do not have the basics in how CHF is differnet than Pneumonia or pleural effusions. They do not have the knowledge of what actually happens to the patient when they are RSI'd but they sure know the drug dosages. They know the skills part but they don't have a firm basis of understanding of why we do certain things over another.

I do not give recommendations to students until they can prove that they have a grasp of what their paramedic or emt text book is trying to teach them. To give them suggestions on medical school level textbooks when they don't have the paramedic education down is tantamount to setting them up for failure. I won't do that. the only books I recommend are Dubin's EKG book, An anatomy and physiology text book and maybe an additional paramedic text book.

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