One of the challenges of being a clerkship director of internal medicine is that there is no perfect textbook for one’s course. More comprehensive textbooks often have all the information a student should have for their patient care needs, but the volume of information in these comprehensive textbooks is far too much for a student to read (much less reread, and study) in the few weeks of a medicine clerkship. Therefore, many students resort to purchasing one of the shorter textbooks, readable within the confines of a clerkship, but often not having the detail of information needed to understand in-depth the patient’s problems (with that superficial knowledge inevitably.
