Second year of PA school is your clerkship year. This is where you take everything you learned in your didactic year, and apply it to seeing patients! It’s more common to obtain handbooks and pocketbooks in second year (versus textbooks in 1st year).

The following are books recommended by Canadian PAs I interviewed, as well as books I have found personally helpful.

Recommended for: all 2nd year clinical rotations

This pocket book is a great quick reference check for any medication that you’ll come across during your rotations. It has dosages for adults, pediatric population, and in other special circumstances, indications, contraindications. It also categorizes everything drug by class. I would not be without this book during a rotation. It also includes Canadian trade names, and an herbal and alternative therapies section. It also includes multiple tables on opioid equivalency, paediatric drug dosing, emergency drug infusions and more!

Recommended for: Family Medicine Rotation

This is a handy flip chart that organizes medications by category. The drugs are presented in tables to make it easier to compare drugs side by side. It contains Canadian names and prices. This one is super handy for Family Medicine rotations.

These are usually available to pick up at the University Book Store.

Recommended for: Family Medicine Rotation

A great problem based approach to learning key cases in Family Medicine! This book includes high yield cases to excel on your clerkship rotation, and practice cases that you can later use to practice for the PA certification exam. Each case includes a complete discussion, clinical pearls, clinical approach, tables, definition of key terms and review questions to test your comprehension.

Recommended for: Family Medicine Rotation – seeing Paediatric patients, Paediatrics Rotation

A great handbook and Canadian resources which offers diagnostic and therapeutic approach to clinical problems that present in Paediatric patients. This includes tables, illustrations and flow charts that allow PA students approach paediatric patients to easily follow. Recommended for beginners and experts in Paediatrics! This handbook comes in handy for studying for the PA Certification Exam.

Recommended for: Family Medicine Rotation

• Anemia Guidelines for Family Medicine
• Anti-infective Guidelines for Community Acquired Infections
• Hypertension Guidelines for Family Medicine
• Men’s Health Guidelines for Family Medicine
• Respiratory (Asthma/COPD) Guidelines for Family Practice

Some of these books may be available for purchase at your University’s Book Store/Medical Book Store

Recommended for: Emergency Medicine Rotation

This handbook is well organized and has just enough information for pathophysiology, Clinical Features, Diagnosis and Differential, approach, with Tables outlining causes of conditions. You can find what you need within 5 minutes of looking up the book. There is also relevant imaging each condition  includes Emergency Department Care and Disposition. The information is not overwhelming, and its a great read to look up something quickly, between patients, and reading up after a shift.

Recommended for: Emergency Medicine Rotation – Peds Cases, or Paediatric ER rotations

Not only is this resource Canadian, but its written by the top Paediatrics from Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. There are 68 chapters on Emergency Paediatric Illnesses and injury. This is a handbook presents information in a bulleted format, with tables, and illustrations. I used this on my rotation during my Peds ER rotation at McMaster and was referencing it regularly!

Recommended for: Internal Medicine, Critical Care, and PA Certification Exam Review

Case Files for Internal Medicine gives you 60 high yield cases that each illustrate an essential concept or disease that are bread and butter in Internal Medicine. This includes clinical pearls, definitions of key terms, and approach to clinical problem solving. With these case files you’ll get accustomed to and learn the next step in the treatment algorithm.  There are practice questions at the end to help you solidify what you learned in the case.

Use this for your mandatory Internal Medicine Rotation, and keep it to practice for the Canadian PA Certification Exam!

Recommended for: General Surgery Rotation

Surgical Recall was actually recommended to me by Canadian medical students gunning for Surgery Residencies while in their 4th year of medical school. I have been “pimped” on many topics that were covered in this book, AND you can understand and study the details of simple to complex surgeries prior to going in. Its formatted in an easy to study format and includes diagrams to help you review relevant anatomy as well as procedures.

An important disclosure: These links are Amazon Associate links, which means if you choose to make a purchase through the link I will earn a commission which helps me support my activity on Canadian PA. You are more than welcome to purchase the books at your local bookstore, or just go directly amazon.ca to search the book titles and purchase that way. Using the links below comes at no additional cost to you – however I do recommend these books because they are helpful and useful. Do not spend money on these books if you do not feel they would be helpful in achieving your goals.