Top 8 Pediatric Books
These books are not in any order. They are, however, rather necessary to get through any Peds/Paeds clinical rotation:
NUMBER 1
I can’t stop telling people how great the Lecture Note series of books are. They are concise, accurate and high yield sources better than most texts in their respective fields. The down side is they are fairly wordy and lack diagrams, which usually leads of boredom or study crash syndrome for some medical students. A lot of the older doctors who teach you on your clinical placements have either read or have been taught something from these books. Get yours now.
NUMBER 2
BRS Pediatrics (Board Review Series)
The USMLES are a rather grueling exam and take a lot out of numerous students every year. The BRS series of books helps to offer essential information that will help any student through the exam in the least number of pages. This particular text is straight to the point and offers high yield information, like the Lecture Note series, but with a more structured approach. The chapters are broken down well and each paragraph holds a wealth of information – so much so that just reading a couple of pages sometimes requires extra reading from other sources just to get the background knowledge behind the concept and not just an answer to a USMLE type question.
NUMBER 3
Illustrated Textbook of Paediatrics
If you are a visual learner than this is the book for you. This is a text book that I found helpful during my Pediatric rotation. It has numerous diagrams and multi coloured pages that keep you engaged, however, that doesn’t mean that it goes light on the info. It offers numerous clinical case presentations as well as chapter summaries that really get the message of the chapter home because, as we all know, your clinical years depend on how well you can make connections between the theory and the clinical.
NUMBER 4
Case Files Pediatrics, Third Edition (LANGE Case Files)
This is pretty straight forward text. A clinical scenario is presented and you are given some information and then asked a few questions on what the diagnosis might be (including further investigations etc). I enjoyed this book because it tries to offer non-text book presentations of known pediatric illnesses e.g. croup, bronchiolitis. This is great because EVERYONE who is on clinical placements knows that the reality of a disease is kinda different from the text on it. A must buy.
NUMBER 5
Blueprints Pediatrics (Blueprints Series)
This is a book I have only ever really skimmed through and as such can not personally vouch for it, but a few of my comtemporaries will swear by it. Furthermore, these are people I study with and know their shit (some better than me I admit). What I tell you it does do well is its presentation of facts via key words, tables, figures, and key points. It has quite a number of board format type questions (and answers) as well as a myriad of pictures of various disease states. It’s probably one of the better Blueprint series books because I tend to think they are sub par in general.
NUMBER 6
Oxford Handbook of Paediatrics
The Oxford Handbook Series have been around for many years and over the years have expanded their series from Clinical Medicine to Obs & Gyn. This time they have tackled the Pediatrics and gives you guidelines/information on common, and uncommon, acute and chronic pediatric diseases/conditions. Get it so you quick access to neonatology, surgery, genetics, congenital malformations and child protection. Another must have for quick access.
NUMBER 7
Pediatric Secrets (4th Edition)
This book pretty much serves as a massive Q&A session covering Pediatric cardiology, dermatology, nephrology, emergency medicine, neurology, hematology, etc. Any topic you can think of is discussed and an extensible amount of questions are asked – some straightforward others not so much. It’s brilliant for anyone who wants to know what type of questions they will be asked on placement and be able to understand the answers they give back 
NUMBER 8
This is another one of the “Must Have” books on this list. The at a glance books have been around for quite a while and a seasoned favourite for all types of medical students – from the gunners to the almost never seen medical students. You simply have to love the way they explain the main pediatric topics, diseases and processes within in a space of 2 pages. How great is that? Even though you only get about 2 pages per topic, they are extremely high yield. Get it, study it and be THE MAN…of Pediatrics
Reference Text:
The is the BIBLE of Pediatrics aka The Gold Standard of pediatrics. Any specialist worth his salt will have this reference text book sitting on his desk in some edition or another. It contains EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about Peds, but goes into more detail than your usual medical student text book. The authors have taken great pains to make sure that the information is up to date and accurate. If you can afford it, this is the end all of Pediatric text books. Enjoy yourself.
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