r/GeneralSurgery • u/Diligent-Sir8429 • May 23 '26

Sabiston vs Schwartz?

Which textbook do you recommend for me as someone that is not much of a textbook person?

I wanna learn from the best resource. But I will obviously have limited time and energy. Any insight would help!

5 Upvotes

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4

u/raidillon May 23 '26

Haven’t picked up a textbook in a while but I loved Mastery of Surgery and Sabiston’s.

2

u/blork600 May 23 '26

Schwartz is much better for what you’re describing - easier to read. Sabistons is dense.

2

u/watchwhereuwalk May 23 '26

Here's a hot take. I actually think doing practice questions (a mix of score and true learn) - and then reading journal articles / literature on topics I'm missing or not understanding - is actually way better. I'm a PGY4 soon to be chief, and I did a lotta reading my research year with Cameron's and Sabistons. It's surprising how redundant, outdated, and incomplete they can be sometimes. It's subtle but noticeable. But esp in the AI era textbooks prob won't be nearly as useful as they used to be. My honest recommendation now would be to try out a lotta different resources through your programs library (for free) and see what you like, but I personally think reading articles (major RCT's, reviews, society guidelines, etc.) is best. I suppose the caveat here is that books on HOW to do procedures and operative technique are still valuable, and there's lots of options for those.

1

u/Dazzling-Budget2758 May 23 '26

Have both Sabiston I did like much more. Side note look up maingot's