Best books and resources for Medical School Pathology and the Pathology NBME 2024
We know that getting a consensus on the best books and resources for any given class 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 pathology book for medical school
Rapid Review Pathology — Goljan
Dr. Goljan is known for a few things, one being his educational resources and time teaching for Kaplan and two being shredded and destroying medical students at arm wrestling. His Rapid Review of Pathology is as shredded as they come—concise, dense but readable, and especially high yield. Text is outline based and has a full complement of pictures and diagrams which help with understanding. On the side of the text are high yield points that relate to that section of the book.
Robbins and Cotran Review of Pathology — Klatt & Kumar
Over 1100 USMLE Step 1 styled questions with full color pictures and illustrations. Answers go over right and wrong answer choices with explanations. Unit 1, 'General Pathology,' is very helpful for the NBME pathology shelf exam and using the question book concurrently with ongoing second year classes will help you recognize highly tested material. This is the most reliable pathology question book on the market.
Pathoma — Sattar
Pathoma over the years has quickly proven itself to be a high yield resource for second year medical students. Ordered through their proprietary website, the Pathoma system comes with a book and electronic access to video lectures by Dr. Sattar that follow along with the chapters. Dr. Sattar has a knack for breaking pathology down into easy to understand morsels in his lectures and provides a great foundation. Watch his videos and following along in his book concurrently with your class lectures; annotate key points he brings up into your First Aid.
Next Steps
Robbins Basic Pathology (Little Robbins) — Kumar, Abbas & Aster
A condensed, paragraph-based, 928 page textbook that reviews all of second year pathology; a good counterpart to Goljan's Rapid Review if you prefer a typical textbook experience when reading. Double trouble if used with it's question book counterpart, Review of Pathology.
BRS Pathology — Schneider & Szanto
Shorter than Rapid Review, BRS condenses pathology into the dense, outline-based format it is known for. High yield and clearly written
If you have time
Robbins and Cotran's Pathologic Basis of Disease (Big Robbins) — Kumas, Abbas & Aster
Gunners rejoice! If, for some reason, you find that you have spare time during second year, this is truly the gold standard for medical school pathology education. Even without using this text as a primary source of learning, having Big Robbins's 1408 pages of comprehensive pathology on hand as a reference source is highly recommended; the figures and tables in this text are especially high yield (especially its "Key Concept" blue boxes) and the text is easy to read. If you're already reading Robbins Basic Pathology, the purpose of this book may not have the most utility, but if you're using Pathoma or Rapid Review, this text will more than adequately cover any gaps found.