ABSTRACT:
Good text books contribute significantly in effective learning of medical students. A total number of 93 second year undergraduate medical students from Sri Lakshminarayana Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry, participants in the survey on the use and views of text book of pharmacology. Of these 80 students belong to senior batch who have completed more than one year training in pharmacology; the remaining 13 students (junior batch) have completed six months. The survey revealed that 46.25% of students are using ‘Essentials of Medical Pharmacology’ by KD Tripathi. In contrast only 7.69% of junior batch preferred this text book. Forty percent of students of senior batch preferred the ‘Pharmacology prep manual for Undergraduates’ by Tara V Shanbhag, while 92.3% of the junior batch preferred the same. Text book of medical pharmacology by Padmaja Udaykumar was preferred by 12.5% of senior batch students and only by one student of junior batch. Easy understanding was attributed as a main cause for preference of the text book. From the statement of students it can be inferred that they give top priority for books which contain essential information, with less than 500 pages and simple, brief and clear explanation of mechanism of action. About 35% of students wanted pneumonics for easy recall without much stress. It appears from the survey in this study that students prefer text books from Indian authors. Hence, medical teachers from India should come forward to author text books which are reader friendly, illustrative and concise.