1st year MBBS books and price for Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry

Basically, we have three subjects in 1st year of MBBS journey. These are the nonclinical subjects means these are the backbones of Medicine. Three subjects have only theories and practical sessions. The subjects are Anatomy, Physiology, and Biochemistry. In this post, I tried to give you a suggestion about preferring 1st year MBBS books.

Standards of 1st year MBBS books

Here in this post as a medico from my experience and my colleagues, we’ve possibly suggested the books you can refer to in your 1st year MBBS journey. As far as MBBS is concerned, we use some books for basic study and several others to refer to. According to the standards of books, we possibly classified books as,

1. Gold standard books
2. Medium clause books
3. Exam passing books

Gold standard books

Gold standard books are the topmost books of the particular subject and all the other books have a reference from that one. So practically there are no such books greater than Gold standard books. But you can’t really use gold standard books for your exam purposes. Instead, you can use that for,

• To learn more about the subjects apart from exam point of view
• References and clarification about a few topics
• To collect data for CME programs or Lectures
• To participate in inter-college QUIZ programs

Medium clause books

Medium clause books are the ones you are going to use for basic study and exam point of view. This should be your primary book for you to write exams. It will have good pictorial representations, enough subheadings for better understandings, and a clear, condensed, and point-wise representation of different topics. By following these books you can even get standard grades like Distinction and Honors.

Exam passing books

So these are the books almost 20 to 30% of my classmates preferred before two months of University exams. These books will concisely have information. Sometimes some books will have errors as well. But I can assure you, you can pass the exams by following these. To understand a bit more between exam passing and standard books, I have given an example here.

We all know that Y comes after X in alphabets. So a Line in exam passing books would be “In alphabets, Y comes after X”.

Now, the same Information in any standard books would be, “In alphabets, There are 26 letters Out of them X is 24^th letter, Y is 25^th letter and Z is 26^th letter That’s why Y comes after X .”

Anatomy books for 1st year MBBS

While considering Anatomy, it is the base of medicine, especially surgery. We will have to study Anatomy under six sections and each section will have specific parts of the anatomy to study so there will be separate books for all sections. The sections are

1. General Anatomy – Study of basement structures like blood cells, vessels, bones, muscles, etc…
2. Gross Anatomy – Study of complete anatomy of all regions and organ systems
3. Embryology – Study of early developmental stages of an organism,
4. Histology – the study of structures of tissue under a microscope,
5. Radiology – Study of Internal structures with CT, X-ray, MRI, etc…

1. General Anatomy

For general anatomy, we usually prefer the Handbook of General Anatomy by BD Chaurasias. But it doesn’t really matter if you use different authors for general anatomy because general anatomy is just a basis for gross anatomy (which is main for your exam). Even Vishram Singh also has a book for general anatomy, you can also get it on amazon.

2. Gross Anatomy

For gross anatomy middle clause books, two authors are there BD Chaurasias and Vishram Singh. Most of the institutions and professors prefer BD Chaurasias over Vishram Singh. One reason is that the book is ancient and they may have used it. In some colleges, a few professors even prescribing Vishram Singh. For me personally compared to BD Chaurasias Vishram Singh has easy diagrams, which are better illustrated and colored hence making it less monotonous and more retainable. But unfortunately, I came to know this fact only 2 months before my University exams. So I suggest don’t go blindly and buy books instead of reading out both the books and make a clear decision.

OR

Considering Gold standard books for Anatomy we have the king of books in medical life Gray’s anatomy for students. This is a very beautifully written book. To anybody who wants to study a lot more than what’s given in medium clause books, then I highly suggest Gray’s anatomy. But strictly speakings it is not for everyone. One important thing is that Gray’s anatomy doesn’t really have Neuroanatomy.

Coming to Exam passing books condensed form of BD Chaurasias is available. Which some of the students use to pass out the university exams. But you can also use Vishram Singh at the last moment as well.

3. Embryology

Embryology is an ignored subject in anatomy. People usually read it only for practicals and theory (important questions usually asked in University exams). But embryology is an important subject that will come under Pediatrics and Gynecology in the future. So at least have a general outline about embryology like from which structure this organ is formed. So in our institute, we followed Yogesh Sontakke’s textbook of Human Embryology.

4. Histology

For Histology, you will need to buy three sets of books. A textbook for Histology, a Practical Manual for Histology, and a Practical histology workbook. We in our institution used Krishna Garg’s textbook and practical workbook. It’s really a good book with in-depth knowledge of how the tissues arranged, what are the layers and how the vessels arranged, etc…

But some institutions preferring Inderbir Singh’s textbook for Histology. Yes to be honest I didn’t really follow Inderbir Singh’s textbook but my friends from different institutions said the book is sick. It is cooler than Krishna Garg. So at this point, it will be better if you consult with your professors and make the decision to choose which book to follow.

5. Radiology and Surface Anatomy

For radiology and Surface anatomy, we in our institution followed A Halim’s Surface and Radiological Anatomy. For the practicals, you will be given an X-ray and asked for what is in the X-ray, so that comes under Radiology. You will be asked to draw the landmarks of organs or course of artery or nerve on a Cadaver, this one comes under Surface anatomy.

Atlas and Dissection books

These atlas and dissection books are not really used for exam purposes, Instead, these are used before studying a new region or system in Gross anatomy(Atlas) and before dissecting a particular part of a cadaver(Dissection books).

Considering atlas I used Netters atlas of human anatomy. But few of my friends used Thieme’s atlas of anatomy as well. That one is also pretty good.

Considering Dissection books we all used Cunningham’s manual of practical Anatomy. Don’t ever touch the cadaver or the scalpel until you read how to dissect that particular region in a practical manual.

Physiology books for 1st year MBBS

Getting into physiology is divided into the Practicals and Theory parts. Apart from the exam point of view Physiology practicals are more important than the theory part. Practical physiology is the base for Medicine and Pathology. Practical physiology has a Hematology part where you will examine blood and Systemic experiments of each organ system.

1. Physiology theory books

Considering gold standard books you can use either Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology or Ganong’s Review Of Medical Physiology. Both are the king of Physiology. Use them only for references it’s good and okay. But few of my friends used Guyton and Hall as a primary book for physiology and they managed to study till the university exams.

While looking for medium clause books or books you can follow for exam purposes, I can suggest you G K PAL and A K JAIN.

Concepts in G K PAL’s book are very well mentioned. I referred to this book mainly for CVS and CNS. Both of which are given very nicely and Diagrams and flowcharts are also mentioned where ever necessary. So this book is just amazing

Personally, I didn’t read A K JAIN book much as it gives a lot of stuff that is not required for your theory exams. The practical stuff is mentioned as well in this book. This book has some amazing flowcharts and diagrams in many topics especially in RS and GIT which help us to recollect things easily.

Next looking for Exam passing books in Physiology, We have Sembulingam. This book has a few mistakes that are not understood by most people. So I would not suggest you use this book. For the sake of passing exams, few students use this as a last resort.

2. Physiology practical books

For practical physiology, we used G K PAL‘s practical book. It is one of the best books out there. For each practical topic the way they explained the procedure, calculation parts, Graphs, Tables, and clinical part is better than others.

Biochemistry books for 1st year MBBS

Biochemistry explains the chemical structures and functions of the human body. It also has two parts Theory and Practicals. Biochemistry is very easy to learn and understand if you love Organic chemistry. And of course, it is the basis for Pharmacology.

1. Biochemistry theory books

Biochemistry is a study of cells and organisms, chemical structures of molecules of the biological system, their properties function of these molecules how they interact and what are the biological reactions they involved in.

Going onto gold standard books for Biochemistry, we have Harper’s Illustrated Biochemistry and Lippincott’s Illustrated Biochemistry. Both are god level books for Biochemistry. These two books can give you way more information than other Biochem books do.

Passing to medium clause books, we have DM Vasudevan here Textbook for Biochemistry. This book has information comprehensively so that everyone can easily understand. For the chapter, Genetics DM Vasudevan doesn’t have enough information, so it will be better if you read Lippincott for Genetics.

Looking for Exam passing books, we have the Satyanarayana textbook for Biochemistry. It has all information in a condensed manner, so you can easily cover more subjects even if you started studying before three months of exams.

2. Biochemistry practical books

For practical books, you can use Evangeline Jones’s Practical book for Biochemistry. It has much information about every single experiment in a condensed and points-wise manner so that everyone can easily catch up.