Pediatric Board Review: Pearls of Wisdom, Third Edition: Pearls of Wisdom 3rd Edition

This board review is divided by chapter into all the organ systems. It provides you with a multisensorial on how to practice reviewing along or with friends and how to go about sharing and coaching each other with the correct answers. I feel like I've joined the Jeopardy or a debate team...

The below is a letter I sent to the editor after finding too many outdated answers, typographical errors and just simply wrong answers. I am not sure this text will help me study for the boards. The span of questions is excellent, but I feel I can not trust the answers given to be accurate. Its a shame, because I would expect this number of errors in a 1st edition, but not a 3rd.Dear Sir,I am a 1st year fellow in Neonatology and am studying to take my pediatric boards this October. There are a number of errors in the 3rd edition of Pediatric Board Review Pearls of Wisdom © 2006. The errors are both typographical - using the incorrect Greek character instead of beta or alpha (p45, 65, 199 are some examples), and exchanging pronouns (bottom p70).These can be excused as sloppy editing in a rush to get a text to print. However, there are a significant number of incorrect answers that make me questions the validity of the text. In the Neurology chapter alone, I found 3 errors. There might be more, I just don't know enough or have enough time to look up which answers may be correct and which may be wrong. The examples I found of wrong answers:1) p174 - it's the Glasgow Coma Scale, not the Glascow Coma Scale. There are 6 points for Best motor response, not 5.2) p185 - to diagnose Tourette's syndrome, symptoms must be present for one year, not 6 months3) p194 - there must be 6 or more café au lait spots to diagnose NF1 regardless of age. The size of the spots listed was correct.I was able to find these errors because I knew the right answers and when the right answer in your text was wrong, I used Nelsons 17th edition or Goetz Textbook of Clinical Neurology 2nd edition to find the right answer. It makes me wonder how many other questions are giving incorrect answers. I read the disclaimer at the front of the book - "PBR has its limitations. We have found many conflicts between sources of information. We have tried to verify....". If the above examples are in conflict, what sources support the authors' answers? Is there a 3rd edition errata website I can go to that lists the errors or a document that can be emailed to me? If not, I would like a full refund since I can not trust your text to have accurate answers. I paid [...], from Amazon.com on July 24, 2006, with free shipping and no tax. I am including this letter on the online review of this text on Amazon.com.

I really liked this. Several years ago, I passed my recertification boards only using this text. I will look for an updated version when I have to re-certify again. I just gave it to a friend who was doing his Family Medicine boards this year and he liked it too. He recongnised several questions on his test he could answer from this book.

I am a pediatric neurologist with an academically-based practice in a large metropolitan pediatric hospital. I used this book to study for the pediatric board recertification examination. I have never been compelled to write a book review before but I felt I owed it to other potential buyers to comment. I whole-heartedly agree with the other reviewer that this textbook contains far too many errors. There are multiple typographical errors, even several per page in some cases. The majority of greek letters throughout the book are incorrect. In some cases, the editor's notes are even left in the text. Abbreviations are often used without explanation or reference any where else in the text. More egregious though are the number of incorrect answers throughout the text. The prior reviewer pointed out several of them but other examples include:1) page 179 - The text provides chomosome 18 as the gene responsible for NF2, when the correct answer is chromosome 22.2) Page 141 - The question says "Lorenzo's oil" is used to treat adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) which is correct. However, then it says that ALD is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease - and of course this is incorrect because Lou Gehrig's disease is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS.Other problems include the fact that Genitourinary and Renal chapter contains multiple repeat questions as does the chapter on Random Pearls. The whole Transplant chapter uses the exact same questions that are found in the prior chapter.The format of the book with brief questions and answers is helpful but in all of my medical training, I have never encountered a book with more errors. It is an embarrassment to the publishers. This book is not worth the purchase.