Essentials of Orthopaedic Surgery by Mark Baratz is a decent book for medical students and interns.

The new Handbook of Fractures (supplement to the Rockwood and Green texts) by Kovall and Zuckerman is an excellent book for all students and residents. I don't know of a better handbook.

Surgical Exposures in Orthopaedics by Hoppenfeld is also a book all students and residents should have. As a student, the main pimping material is anatomy so this book will get you ready for your cases.

Good luck

Are you trying to save money or do you want a new libarary?

saver:
1. Fundamentals of Orthopaedics - Brinkler/Miller - The "baby Miller" is comprehensive, but concise enough to get through in a month.
2. Handbook of Fractures - good, but not great; a pocket stuffer

spender:
1 and 2. as above
3. Hoppenfelds exam of the spine and extremities
4. Hoppenfelds surgical exposures - an awesome ortho anatomy text, but seriously folks, it's $200. Learn the exposure the first time you watch and then photocopy imp exposures like the hip.
5. Baratz or Miller

it has been said on other posts and i agree...

Netter's Concise Atlas of Ortho Anatomy is a must... i plan to use this for the next few year and maybe beyond... it is not complete, but has more than you can hope to memorize at this point.

i agree...netter's ortho atlas is the 1 book you need. all other books are unnecessary, especially hoppenfeld's surgical exposures, which is $200 down the drain. a fx handbook is good (kovall, zuckerman), but netter's has decent fxs in it as well.

I have many of the above mentioned books and I agree that the single most important one for a med student is Netter's Concise Atlas of Orthopaedic Anatomy. Hoppenfel'd Physical Examination is slightly overrated since it does not inlcude many of the tests used for sports physicals (for instance, Lachman's for the ACL and O'Brien's for SLAP lesions). My favorite Hoppenfeld book is actually the Orthopaedic Dictionary, which I have at home and reference a lot, but bviously just a reference.

for students, i heard secrets is great for the "pimp" questions.

anyone hear different?

Simpsons quote of the day:
"You could change your name to Homer Jr. All the kids could call you HoJu!"

secrets blows like a starving hooker

netter's ortho atlas was great espicially for clinic when pts with stuff you've never heard of come in. it was a great quick resource. hoppenfeld's exposures was great. to deal with the cost issue, i check it out from my med school library. i also checked a book all my residents were using called "Fractures" by wiss.

:pimp:

Of course, the little Netter ortho book is the best single book to own, but I've got to put the plug in for Tarascon's Pocket Orthopaedica. That book was the money when all I could carry had to fit in my scrub pocket.

A glance at Surgical Exposures is a must before doing an unfamiliar case with anyone you care about impressing. As mentioned before, a medical student must know the anatomy--everything else is gravy.

I also liked Ortho Secrets for filling my mind with commonly pimped facts (the gravy). I bought the blue 2nd ed Handbook of Fractures and actually liked the Tarascon's better.