Biochemistry (Lippincott’s Illustrated Reviews)
Biochemistry is the study of the chemical processes that take place in the body, from muscle contraction to fat metabolism to genetics. Many people will tell you that biochemistry is useless for clinical practice, but I would beg to differ. Biochemistry gives you basics to tackle pharmacology, a 2-year track, and if you actually pay attention to the clinical details of the metabolism topics, you would be surprised how many of these pop up during paediatrics. In addition, the final integration of all metabolic pathways gives one a sense of satisfaction when you finally see how everything clicks together.
In this track, the lecturers will always give notes to supplement their lectures, and for many topics, if you just intend to get by (pass only, that is), notes and a little bit of attention during lectures is sufficient. However, for the more insecure ones, here’s the list of recommended texts:
Recommended Texts:
Biochemistry (Lippincott’s Illustrated Reviews)
Pamela C Champe
Richard A Harvey
(we call it: Lippincott)
This is the good simple book for biochemistry. There are diagrams everywhere, clinically relevant information are well arranged, and it’s highly portable. If you were to only purchase one biochemistry book I would strongly recommend this. The thing is that the pages of the book seem to fall out very easily, and soon you might end up having to bind the pages together.
Basic Medical Biochemistry
Marks, Marks and Smith
(we call it: MMS)
This is the second most popular biochemistry book among medical students. The book contains much detail, and is useful if you want to attain a greater understanding. There are also amusing case studies in the book, which tend to resurface in CA MCQs or even essay questions.
Textbook of Biochemistry with Clinical Correlations
Thomas M Devlin
(we call it: Devlin)
This book is lesser-used, but personally I enjoyed the book. Colourful diagrams are all over the book, and there are nice boxes with interesting clinical information not described elsewhere. However this book is really thick, and there’s not much time to plough trough all the information presented (most of it is irrelevant to the syllabus), but if you enjoy buying comprehensive books for occasional reference, do consider this book.