Home › DrNB Books › Plastic Surgery
The NBE curriculum list, reproduced exactly, plus the editions residents actually read in 2026 — with journals, a year-wise reading plan, and the references you will need for your thesis and exit practical.
Doing the MCh instead? The same superspecialty is covered at MCh Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery books.
These 13 titles are reproduced as they appear in the National Board of Examinations curriculum document for Plastic Surgery — spelling and abbreviations included. Treat it as the scope anchor, not as a shopping list.
Source: National Board of Examinations curriculum document for Plastic Surgery
The books most residents actually buy. These are the editions in circulation now, with a note on whether each is something you read through, keep as a reference, or open only for the viva.
Journal club and the recent-advances parts of the theory paper come from here. You do not need all of them — follow one Indian and two international titles properly.
Three years of superspecialty training goes faster than it sounds, and most of it is spent on the floor. The order below is what works for most DrNB Plastic Surgery residents.
Read Grabb and Smith cover to cover, learn flap anatomy from Grabb's Encyclopedia and Mathes and Nahai, and manage burns from Herndon during the burns posting. Register the thesis.
Move into Neligan by volume as subspecialty rotations come up, take up Green's during hand postings and Acland/Sabapathy in the microsurgery lab, and start craniofacial reading.
Revise Grabb and Smith and selected Neligan chapters, drill flap planning and marking, practise operative step description and microsurgery, and write timed short notes.
Protocol, methodology and reporting standards examiners expect you to have followed.
Cases, spotters and stations that come up again and again in the exit exam.
DrNB Plastic Surgery theory follows the NBE superspecialty pattern of three papers of 100 marks and three hours each in short-notes format, with 150/300 to pass, and a 300-mark practical taken after theory that combines clinical cases and/or OSCE with viva. Practicals emphasise reconstructive planning: flap selection and marking, burns assessment, hand and cleft cases, and instrument or microsurgery stations.
The National Board of Examinations curriculum for Plastic Surgery lists 13 titles, beginning with Paediatric Burns-Total Management of the Burned Child by Marella L Hanumadass and K Mathangi Ramakrishnan. The full list is reproduced on this page exactly as it is published.
Neligan's Plastic Surgery (6-volume set) by Peter C. Neligan is the usual anchor. The definitive multi-volume reference for the entire specialty.
DrNB Plastic Surgery is a superspecialty course taken after a broad-specialty MD, MS or DNB, so the reading is narrower and deeper. The broad-specialty texts are assumed knowledge by the time you start.
No. Most residents own two or three and use the department or library copy for the rest. That is exactly why printing selected chapters from a PDF works out cheaper than buying volumes you will open twice.
We print from the PDF you send us. Send the file on WhatsApp with your page count and whether you want colour, black and white or mixed, and we print, bind and deliver anywhere in India. We do not supply copyrighted book files.
Black and white is 50 paise a page, colour is Rs 1 a page, and binding is Rs 40 per bound volume. A 400-page mixed set with binding usually works out around Rs 300 plus delivery.
Send the PDF on WhatsApp — colour Rs 1/page, B&W 50p/page, binding Rs 40. Printed, bound and delivered anywhere in India.
Send your PDF