as a first year dentist i would highly recommmed it to those out there who are 1st years too. the book is well detailed, maybe more than it should be , but it covers everything that it needs to do. the use of many histological and other general pictures helps immensely in understanding many of the topics. if your looking at buying berkovitz i would suggest you look at oral bioscience by d.b ferguson. it covers many of the same topics, maybe more to the point, but can be hard to understand. due to lack of diagrams/slides.