Excellent!
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Completely overhauled for this new edition, this is a top-notch medical dictionary; coloured illustrations, photographs and tables are all used selectively to highlight points and facilitate understanding. The dictionary comes with a CD-ROM allowing you to install an e-book version on your PDA and a spell-checker on your PC. Both the e-book and spell-checker are easy to install and use, although both require web-access from your PC for installation.
The PDA version is a shortened version of the paper-based dictionary. The apparent lack of diagrams on the PDA version is a bit of a shame. In terms of searching for a word or abbreviation there is the usual index. The index is complemented with a search facility; this greatly speeds-up the ability to look-up words. As per the paper version there are also links between related definitions - flicking to and through these different links is easier on the PDA.
The spell-checker slots neatly into Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office - it contains all the words in the dictionary, and works well in Word XP. The installation even includes a test document to determine whether the installation was successful - a nice thoughtful touch.
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Excellent Medical Dictionary
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I have used the Dorland's Medical Dictionary for 25 years working in a hospital transcription position. This dictionary makes looking up words easy and in most cases I could find what I was looking for in here when I could not find it in the Stedman's. I am buying books for working at home and this is one of my first choices.
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This was very disappointing
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I was very disappointed when I got this dictionary. I had before the 1937 17th edition and the 1982 pocket edition. This edition shows you what cann happen when a book goes through many editions. Among the things wrong were: 1) The book is oversized and bulky to handle. 2) It is printed on what may be positiveley the worst sort of paper for a medical dictionary or other alphabetically rganized reference book. The pages are a bit hard to separate and are very easily badly wrinkled by water. I worried about whether Amazon com would let me return it after I damaged one page but they said okay. I have very rarely seen any book printed on paper like it or close to it except for some Bibles. 3) It is an important principle of a good medical dictionary that evry word used in a definition should itself be defined (although that will send a novice looking through half a dozen or more entries, the person will learn and it's valueable) This principle I think has been forgotten and this may nmot apply to new words added in recent editions - or the word may be defined only by pointing back to the entry that mentioned it. 4) The definitions have gotten too wordy. This is probably an attemppt to make them more exact but this is done by throwing in extra clauses into the middle of a definitio. 5) The illustrations are all in black and white, even for the eye, in spite f the fact that the 1982 Pocket edition had several color plates. 6) There is a lot f extra white space on the pages. To me this just looks like a reduction in quality. This is not more user friendly. User frinedly would be ease in speed of looking something up and understanding. The dictionary as a whole almost seems l like the target audience the publisher now has in mind is an experienced physician who may once every month or three look up ONE word. That is not for whom a dictionary should be designed for. rather it should be a student or educated layperson. I'm keeping on using my old dictionaries. For anything new I can probably find glossaries in a book. There may not be now any good medical dictionary on the market or if there is it is probably pbscure. Overall also I should say paperbacks or Permabond type covers are better than hardcover. Not only do they weight more, but I think the dust jacket of a hardcover is more easily damaged than the cover of a paperback.
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The best medical dictionary.
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Dorland's and Stedman's are the two premier medical dictionaries. Any physician or other person who requires frequent reference to medical definitions should probably own both (I do). Both books have occasional errors; each book has terms that the other lacks; and each book has some definitions that are superior to the those in the other. However, if you purchase only one, I recommend Dorland's. In my opinion, Dorland's has definitions for more terms, better definitions and fewer errors.
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