Bates' Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking, Ninth Edition with E-Book (Guide to Physical Exam & History Taking (Bates))

I would not recommend this book. On techniques of examination of the Nose and Sinuses this book shows and tells you to use an otoscope with an ear speculum to examine the nose. This is wrong. The correct way to examine the nose is with a bivalve nasal speculum and a penlight or a headlight. Also an ear speculum should only be used to examine the external auditory canal of the ear. When Dr. Barbara Bates was the author of this book this correct information on the nasal examination was in the book. Dr. Bickley should not have taken correct information out of this book and inserted wrong information. Also this book does not have posterior rhinoscopy(examination of the nasopharynx with a nasopharyngeal mirror), indirect laryngoscopy with a laryngeal mirror, anoscopy, and sigmoidoscopy. I recommend Textbook of Physical Diagnosis 4th ed. by Mark Swartz, M.D. for Physical Diagnosis courses not Bickley's book.

Could there be a better way to put phsyical exam in a book? The pictures are great and the step by step approach is great for people just learning the physical exam or people that need to brush up on specific aspects of an exam.

This book is good just because I could not find any better book.
It has good colored pictures but pictures are for extere pathologies, there is not much practical pictures. What is also missing is key observations. Yes there are some warnings for key observations but not enough. observations that are in the margins of the book should be the scope of the book. Explanations are very broad, for example says "look for asymetry or discoloratio, etc but it does not say very often than what. it helps for note taking but does not help much for diagnostics.there are some tables that guides you but those tables are very extensive.May be I was expecting more that what it should be.

It is a book worth keeping all the time around you, in the clinic, in the ward and everywhere. I being a homeopathic doctor felt that in the beginning the text teaching almost everything needed to hunt for the clues, symptoms and signs to pin-point the problme and later serves as a reference. This new edition has many added features along with the all previous ones. I usually didn't need to consult anyother book while using it.

This is an excellent textbook!!! I have used this book as a student and to help prepare my student for a health assessment check off and for their test. This book has been a valued resource in my library for the past 10 years. I have purchased 3 editions of this textbook over this period of time. I highly recommend this textbook for advanced students and professional healthcare members.