Gladwin. Clinical Micro Made Rididiculously Simple

[Guest Ian Wong]

Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple, 2nd Ed. Gladwin, M. Trattler, B. 1999. Medmaster, Inc. Miami.

 

ISBN: 0-940780-32-1

Chapters/Indigo.ca price: $33.30

Pages: 273

 

What can I say about this book other than: BUY IT NOW!!! This book is one of my top contenders for all-time favorite medical book, and it's extremely popular with all of my classmates as well. I did very well in our med school Microbiology block, despite never having taken a dedicated microbiology course in undergrad. I owe a lot of that perfomance to this book (and the rest to sheer luck!).

 

Ridiculously Simple starts with an introductory chapter on the basics of bacteria and viruses, with information on bacterial structures such as the cilia, flagella, and peptidoglycan layer in the cell wall of gram-positives, and viral structures and methods of replication. It describes many of the common lab tests eg. gram-stain and culture media, which are actually used clinically and avoids a lot of the clinically-irrelevant minutiae (otherwise you could fill a complete book for each individual bacteria or virus). The biggest strength of Ridiculously Simple is that it uses an incredible number of excellent and sticky mnemonics (I still remember the staff picture with the cat being clustered together: Staph. aureus clusters are seen under Gram Stain microscopy and are catalase-enzyme positive) or the TORCHES mnemonic for micro-organisms that cross the placenta.

 

This book has sections for basically all bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, and helminths that you are likely to encounter in an infectious diseases setting. There is also an excellent chapter on antibiotics detailing their mechanisms of action, and the first-line treatments for most infections (I cannot stress how important this knowledge is for clinical work). Many of the mnemonics are supplemented by cartoon drawings, which are especially handy if you are a visual learner. The line-drawings are all in black and white, but this doesn't decrease their memorizability at all. They are an extremely useful supplement to the mnemonics.

 

If this weren't enough already, each chapter concludes with a very crammable table for those micro-organisms, including diseases caused, treatment/antibiotics, diagnostic tests, and miscellaneous trivia. These one-page tables are easily flagged using Post-It stickies for a very handy and easily-referenced guide to bugs and critters. This book plus your lecture notes should be all you need to handle med school microbiology, even if you have no previous background. You should definitely buy this book as it will be relevant not only during the book years of med school, but also during the clinical years.