20 Essential Books for Primary Care Clinicians

This list is a compilation of books for different primary care specialties including Family Medicine and Internal Medicine. It also includes reference books for Pediatrics, OBGYN and Sports Medicine.

Some books you might find beneficial for yourself and to recommend to patients.

A few of them are related to personal growth and development. Helping your financial education or helping you prevent physician burnout. Some of these books contain tips and tools to be more efficient in your profession.

It even contains a classic book with medical humor.

Let’s start with the Pocket Notebook Series. Although they all fit in your pocket, it is nice to have them all available on your phone’s kindle app. Ready for you to glance within a few clicks. Ready for you anytime, anywhere.

Pocket Medicine: The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Internal Medicine

by Marc Sabatine

This book is a must-have resource for fast answers to diagnostic questions you’ll face in the inpatient setting as a hospitalist. It provides up-to-date, dependable guidance on the internal medicine information needed to make an accurate diagnosis and develop a treatment plan. Compiled by residents and attending physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital, this best-selling reference ensures that quick access to key clinical information and solutions to common problems in internal medicine is as close as your pocket! (or your phone).

Pocket Primary Care (Pocket Notebook Series)

by Meghan M. Kiefer, Curtis R. Chong

Pocket Primary Care, Second Edition, is a practical, high-yield reference for quick answers to common diagnostic questions in the outpatient setting. This easy-to-use resource contains current evidence-based practices, accepted best practices, and expert guidance from physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital, including appropriate workups and when to refer. From counseling patients on insomnia to diagnosing STIs, from interpreting PFTs to treating osteoporosis, this revised second edition supports your clinical decision making and helps you meet everyday challenges in your practice.

Pocket Pediatrics (Pocket Notebook)

by Paritosh Prasad

Ideal for medical students, interns and residents, the latest edition of this portable quick-reference—part of the popular Pocket Medicine series, prepared by residents and attending physicians—has been updated with new contributors and information on pediatric disorders and problems encountered in any clinical situation, including the ICU. The book is heavy on bulleted lists, tables, and algorithms, and the small size means it can fit snugly in anyone’s white coat pocket! … The kindle version is even lighter.

Pocket Surgery (Pocket Notebook Series)

by Daniel B. Jones 

Pocket Surgery, Second Edition, is your go-to source for the essential information you need to care for surgery patients, as well as for success in your surgery clerkship rotation and on exams. This volume in the popular Pocket Notebook series provides a concise and focused review of the entire field of surgery — including breast, critical care, cardiothoracic, gastrointestinal, colorectal, vascular, pediatric, plastic, transplant, and endocrine – all in one easy-to-navigate looseleaf notebook.

Pocket Obstetrics and Gynecology (Pocket Notebook)

by K. Joseph Hurt 

This practical, high-yield Pocket Notebook title is an ideal on-the-go reference for trainees and practitioners of obstetrics and gynecology. Written by residents with oversight from fellows and faculty experts, and perfect for initial care plans during rounds, this easy-to-use, loose-leaf resource is packed with up-to-date information answering the clinical questions you face every day. Pocket Obstetrics and Gynecology, Second Edition, is an indispensable quick resource you won’t want to be without!

Comprehensive Handbook Obstetrics and Gynecology

by Thomas Zheng

This pocket-sized book provides vital information in a concise, portable format. It focuses on diagnosis and therapy, including management protocols, medications, and dosages. Common problems are covered in greater detail. Key facts on uncommon conditions are also presented.

Not available on kindle. Ebook is only available on apple books.

The UCSF Hospitalist Handbook

by AgileMD

Although this book is only available as an app it is highly recommended. The UCSF Hospitalist Handbook is a concise yet comprehensive bedside guide to inpatient medicine. It covers diagnosis and management for common issues in cardiology, critical care, pulmonology, nephrology, hematology/oncology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, infectious disease, rheumatology, and neurology, among others.

Also available on Google Play.

The ICU Book

by Paul L. Marino 

A fundamental and respected resource book in critical care, The ICU Book, Fourth Edition, continues to provide the current and practical guidance that have made it the best-selling text in critical care. The text addresses both the medical and surgical aspects of critical care, delivering the guidance needed to ensure sound, safe, and effective treatment for patients in intensive care regardless of the specialty focus of the unit.

The Ventilator Book

by William Owens 

“The Ventilator Book” is a concise reference for physicians, medical students, advanced practice providers, nurses, and respiratory therapists who are working in the Intensive Care Unit. Dr. William Owens explains, in clear language, the basics of respiratory failure and mechanical ventilation. This is a guide to keep in your jacket pocket, call room, or in the ICU.

This book has enough information to teach anyone about mechanical ventilation, but not so much that reading it becomes intimidating.

Fracture Management for Primary Care

by M. Patrice Eiff, Robert L. Hatch 

Evaluate and treat common fractures and know when to refer uncommon ones to a specialist. This quick, practical resource by Drs. M. Patrice Eiff and Robert L. Hatch presents detailed descriptions and illustrations, and current best guidelines for imaging and treating fractures so you can make accurate identifications and manage patients with confidence. 

A Practical Guide to Joint & Soft Tissue Injections

by James W. McNabb

A Practical Guide to Joint & Soft Tissue Injection and Aspiration explains the rationale and step-by-step procedures for joint and soft tissue injections and aspirations. The book enables primary care practitioner to master the effective techniques for treating a variety of common skin and musculoskeletal conditions. This edition covers many alternative techniques and several new procedures, including a whole new section on ultrasound-guided injections.

Pfenninger and Fowler’s Procedures for Primary Care E-Book

by Grant C. Fowler

Primary care clinicians are performing more varied procedures than ever before, and physicians, residents, and students need a comprehensive, authoritative resource that provides trusted information in an easy-to-follow format. Through three outstanding editions, Pfenninger and Fowler’s Procedures for Primary Care has been the go-to reference for step-by-step strategies for nearly every medical procedure that can be performed in an office, hospital, or emergency care facility by primary care providers. This 4th Edition continues that tradition with new section editors, updated illustrations, new chapters, and much more. No other primary care procedure book compares with Pfenninger and Fowler’s breadth and depth of practical, step-by-step content!

Practical Insulin: A Handbook for Prescribing Providers

by Neumiller PharmD CDE 

This indispensable handbook gives physicians, clinicians, and diabetes educators the information and data necessary to successfully initiate and maintain insulin therapy in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Now completely revised and updated to evaluate the changing landscape of insulin therapy.

SOAP Notes: The Down and Dirty on Squeaky Clean Documentation

by Jeremiah Fleenor 

Do you feel like there’s more to the SOAP note than the S, O, A and P? Well you’re right. This book will show you just how much more there is and what you need to do to write great notes. This book is like a double shot of espresso: concentrated, direct, with only the essentials. After reading this book you will be so excited for your clerkships that you’ll have to try not to honor!

StatNote: Dot Phrases to Expedite Your Medical Documentation: Primary Care Phrase Library. 1000+ Boilerplate Templates.

by Gerardo Guerra Bonilla

Are you tired of eating lunch at your desk and staying after hours or working from home to complete your progress notes? Documentation is the main cause of physician burnout. Discover a simple fix to take back control of your time in the clinic and enjoy practicing medicine. Document at the speed of light with KISS dot phrases. Learn more @ statnote.com.

How to Be a Rock Star Doctor: The Complete Guide to Taking Back Control of Your Life and Your Profession

by Rebekah Bernard MD 

“How to be a Rock Star Doctor” shows doctors how to get on-stage to achieve clinical and professional success, while avoiding burnout. The key is to follow Rebekah Bernard’s Rock Star rules for running a successful practice that delights patients and delivers financial and emotional rewards to the physician.

The Rock Star rules teach the physician to convey the qualities that are the most important to patients, leading to clinical success. It contains many tips to increase your efficiency in the clinic and overcome its challenges.

Physician Wellness: The Rock Star Doctor’s Guide: Change Your Thinking, Improve Your Life (Rock Star Doctor Series)

by Rebekah Bernard MD, Steven Cohen PsyD

The system is broken. YOU don’t have to be! Physician Wellness: The Rock Star Doctor’s Guide teaches doctors how to use psychology to improve their medical practice and their lives.  

Using scientifically validated psychological techniques, you will gain the tools you need to: Create a better work-life balance by setting boundaries and learning how to say ‘no.’ Get out of the office earlier by improving time awareness, ‘real-time’ charting, and more effective patient visits.

The White Coat Investor: A Doctor’s Guide To Personal Finance And Investing

by James M Dahle 

Written by a practicing emergency physician, The White Coat Investor is a high-yield manual that specifically deals with the financial issues facing medical students, residents, physicians, dentists, and similar high-income professionals. Doctors are highly-educated and extensively trained at making difficult diagnoses and performing life saving procedures. However, they receive little to no training in business, personal finance, investing, insurance, taxes, estate planning, and asset protection.

This book fills in the gaps and will teach you to use your high income to escape from your student loans, provide for your family, build wealth, and stop getting ripped off by unscrupulous financial professionals. Straight talk and clear explanations allow the book to be easily digested by a novice to the subject matter yet the book also contains advanced concepts specific to physicians you won’t find in other financial books.

Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection

by John E. Sarno

Help your patient start recovering from back pain. Dr. John E. Sarno’s groundbreaking research on TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome) reveals how stress and other psychological factors can cause back pain-and how you can be pain free without drugs, exercise, or surgery.

Dr. Sarno’s program has helped thousands of patients find relief from chronic back conditions. In this New York Times bestseller, Dr. Sarno teaches you how to identify stress and other psychological factors that cause back pain and demonstrates how to heal yourself–without drugs, surgery or exercise.

With case histories and the results of in-depth mind-body research, Dr. Sarno reveals how you can recognize the emotional roots of your TMS and sever the connections between mental and physical pain.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

by David D. Burns 

With his phenomenally successful Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, Dr. David Burns introduced a groundbreaking, drug-free treatment for depression. The good news is that anxiety, guilt, pessimism, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other ‘black holes’ of depression can be cured without drugs. In Feeling Good, eminent psychiatrist David D. Burns, M.D. outlines the remarkable, scientifically proven techniques that will immediately lift your spirits and help you develop a positive outlook on life.

Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss

by Joel Fuhrman

Hailed a “medical breakthrough” by Dr. Mehmet Oz, Eat to Live offers a highly effective, scientifically proven way to lose weight quickly. The key to Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s revolutionary six-week plan is simple: health = nutrients / calories. When the ratio of nutrients to calories in the food you eat is high, you lose weight. The more nutrient-dense food you eat, the less you crave fat, sweets, and high-caloric foods. 

Eat to Live has been revised to include inspiring success stories from people who have used the program to lose shockingly large amounts of weight and recover from life-threatening illnesses; Dr. Fuhrman’s nutrient density index; up-to-date scientific research supporting the principles behind Dr. Fuhrman’s plan; new recipes and meal ideas; and much more. This easy-to-follow, nutritionally sound diet can help anyone shed pounds quickly-and keep them off.

The House of God

by Samuel Shem, John

By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative novel about what it really takes to become a doctor.

Struggling with grueling hours and sudden life-and-death responsibilities, Basch and his colleagues, under the leadership of their rule-breaking senior resident known only as the Fat Man, must learn not only how to be fine doctors but, eventually, good human beings. 

A phenomenon ever since it was published, The House of God was the first unvarnished, unglorified, and uncensored portrait of what training to become a doctor is truly like, in all its terror, exhaustion and black comedy. With more than two million copies sold worldwide, it has been hailed as one of the most important medical novels ever written.

What other books do you frequently reference in your practice? Do you prefer ebooks or the paperback books? Feel free to share. Comment below.

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Posted on: June 19, 2020, by :

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