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Book Review: CSA Cases Workbook for the MRCGP by Ellen Welch, Irina Zacharcenkova and Jennifer Lyall

This CSA revision aid is written by three freshly qualified GPs who have recently sat the CSA exam and completed VTS training. This makes it feel very up to date and relevant. The book begins with an introduction to the CSA exam, explaining what to expect, and how to start with your revision, including other resources which may be of use, and even a revision timetable.

The ring-bound format makes it extremely easy to use for revision sessions, allowing you to remove the instructions for the simulator and the marking sheet to give to whichever kind person is acting as your patient.

For me, this is the highlight of the book, although this style of presentation does make it bulky and cumbersome to carry around. However, having an individualised mark sheet for every case is a bonus.

As well as its size and weight, the other downfall is the lack of certain common cases which you may have just revised and wanted to practice in role-play, although, granted, it wouldobviously be impossible to cover all the cases that may come up in the exam. Each chapter is based on an area of the GP curriculum, including a chapter of ‘special cases’, and there is decent coverage but this will need to be supplemented with other MRCGP case books.

This makes it, at £44.34 (on Amazon on the day of writing), a little pricey compared with other similar books.

In essence, this is a good book in a great format, which may be a little expensive compared to its competition.

Rating: 7/10

Dr Rebecca Jones is a GP Registrar in Newham.