How to Read Robbins And Cotran Pathology

Hello medicos. I’m sure seniors must have told you by now, ‘Robbins is a must-read.’ It is the most popular book on pathology. You can skip any other standard book. It does not matter as much if you haven’t read Guyton for Physiology. But, Robbins is non-negotiable.  

It is a book that you either read up in Second Year, or you are forced to come back to it during final year Medicine. Pathology is the basis of medicine. If you haven’t read up on pathology properly, you will face problems in every subject after second year. So, it is generally advised to read Robbins.

But, the problem is that even the Medium Robbins books (which come in a set of two) are very bulky and difficult to complete. 

So how do you get through it?

Fortunately, the book is written in a very conversational way. He jokes and also makes the talk a little informal while teaching you Pathology. He does so to keep you engaged. But this also means that the bulk of the book is not just because of the content, it also has a lot of fillers. A lot of mindless sections that you can cut out.

But, this is not the same for both the books. So, I have divided this blog into two parts. First part is for General Pathology and the second is for Systemic Pathology.

General Pathology: Book One

General Pathology is a little difficult to understand without good lectures. You can watch online lectures on the following platforms:

• Dr Najeeb: The GOAT of pathology. It is impossible to not understand after watching his lectures. The only problem is that the lectures are lengthy and a lot in number, especially the Neoplasia section. I would really recommend taking out time and watching his lectures.
• Pathoma lectures. They are concise and to the point. There is also a book by ‘Dr. Husain A. Sattar’ who teaches at Pathoma. The book houses all the important points in pathology, without a lot of explanation. 
• Marrow lectures by Dr Ila Jain Khandelwal: The explanations are very NEET PG centric. So I did not prefer Marrow for Pathology.
• PrepLadder Videos by Dr. Preeti Sharma: Good, adequate explanation. Preferred Indian platform for Pathology
• PW MedEd Lecture series by Dr. Ranjith: He is becoming more popular among medical students nowadays. He is a great option that I will urge you to explore.

Decide your source, watch videos and then get to reading.

Selective Reading

See, I have always been a reader, I used to read a lot of novels as a kid. So, reading comes naturally to me and I did not struggle to get through General Pathology. If this is not the case with you, I would strongly suggest selective reading. Read only the points that are of importance. 

You can understand what these sections are by taking a look at Bhalani. Bhalani is a ‘important topics’ list popular among Indian Medical Students. You can get it from your seniors. Read Bhalani topics, if they feel out of place and difficult to understand, read the topics before them to build context.

Take notes while reading

Try to summarize the important points, try to make flow charts of information. You can use the small ‘Summary’ boxes in the book for this. For example, you can make a flowchart of the events in acute inflammation. This will help you consolidate the information better and understand the key takeaways.

Note, not every line of the book has to be remembered. Summarizing for future reference thus becomes important. 

Also taking notes will ensure much more active learning than just passively reading the book.

Don’t be scared

General Pathology makes much more sense when you are done with systemic pathology. It falls into place and becomes easier to understand. So, there are chances that you might find this section very repetitive without making sense. I would suggest trying to understand as much as you can and leaving the rest for later.

When a particular topic from General Path appears in Systemic Path, you can come back to Book One for a quick review. 

Also, I hope you know that you must always revise the General Section after the Systemic Section. Same goes for Pharmacology, Microbiology and Physiology too. Come back to Book One after you are done reading Book Two and you will see how easy it is to read General Path now.

Systemic Pathology: Book Two.

Visual learning is much much more effective than reading a textbook. Systemic Pathology is something that you can see in the Wards. I would strongly suggest going around the hospital and looking at the different cases. You see a pathology in real life, you come back and read it up. So, postings are a big Yes.

But then, obviously, you wouldn’t find every pathology readily available in a patient at the hospital. So, I’d suggest watching videos of patients affected by the pathology on Youtube. 

Seeing a patient, either on YouTube or in real life, will help you remember the Clinical features much better. Then, you can go to the book and see the diagnostic methods. After knowing how the patient will present and how you will diagnose them, you can go to the most interesting bit which is etiopathogenesis. 

Follow the same system of reading up the important information, skippin the conversational bit if it feels unnecessary and summarizing the information in the form of concise notes.

A great resource

I would suggest using Sketchy Pathology for the initial days. Until you have seen enough cases and the information becomes deeply rooted in your head, it is difficult to memorize the important points. Sketchy Path has visual mnemonics that help you remember the content in a fun way.

You can look up the mnemonics and then correlate them to Robbins. It will help you get through the book much easier than you would without. 

But, not everybody likes or remembers visual mnemonics. Repetition is the key if you do not prefer them. Robbins is a book you will come back to in Medicine Final Year. You should also keep reading your notes whenever you feel bored of the ongoing subjects.

As I also mentioned earlier, go back to General Pathology after completing Systemic Pathology.

Closing Word

Robbins is a very bulky set of books. It will be very difficult to read at first, but soon, you will get a hang of it. Do not stray away after the first few chapters. Give it time, give it energy. It is a rewarding task in the long term.

Also remember that Robbins is not exam friendly. So, refer to books like Ramdas Naik, Harshmohan or Sparsh Gupta for exam times.

Try to get through the Robbins as early as you can, or you will face difficulties reading Harrison in Medicine too. That’s all. All the best dear friends.