Best books and resources for the Family Medicine shelf and rotation 2024
We know that getting a consensus on the best books and resources for any given rotation can be difficult. Asking friends, searching SDN, and consulting seniors can provide a confusing mixed bag of advice.
Turns out, we've done the work for you. Compiled below are comprehensive recommendations on the best books and resources. Click here to find out how we ranked each resource as well as a description of the tiers used. Happy studying!
Highest Yield — The best family medicine book for medical school
Step up to Medicine — Agabegi & Agabegi
A great resource for both Family Medicine and Internal Medicine that breaks pathology in family medicine/internal medicine in an easy to read, but dense, outline format. There is an ambulatory/outpatient medicine chapter which provides a great foundation on which to work on. Works well as a primary source and is relatively thin.
AAFP Questions
Questions that the family medicine academy puts out, concepts and ideas of which are very well represented on the family shelf exam. To access the question bank you need to sign up as a student member of the AAFP but it's completely free: http://www.aafp.org/about/membership/join/student.html. If you don't have much time to study, this and Pretest Family Medicine will be the best use of your time.
Family Medicine PreTest Self-Assessment and Review — Knutson
More questions that, based on Student Doctor Network reviews as well as internal consensus, are well represented on the shelf. The explanations for each questions are brief so don't expect to learn much about pathology outside of what is directly asked. For those issues, take a look at a textbook like Step up to Medicine.
Next Steps
Essentials of Family Medicine — Smith et al.
If you prefer a textbook and paragraphs, Essentials of Family Medicine is a proven resource that goes more in-depth pertinent Family Medicine pathology, issues, and screening. Bulky but a great resource to help you understand.
Swanson's Family Medicine Review — Tallia, Scherger & Dickey
More and more questions! If you've gone through AAFP and Pre-test, Swanson provides many more questions for you to test your knowledge base on. Swanson's has longer answer explanations than PreTest but its material is less high yield for the shelf exam than PreTest's questions.
If you have time
Case Files Family Medicine — Toy et al.
This book, and all Case Files books, in general, presents a case and then goes in depth over it. It's a good book to review specific cases and clinical applications of knowledge. The Family Medicine one is alright as a final review but should not be used as your primary text.