Book reviews

will be a useful addition to our departmental library where we can use it to resolve irritating queries raised by our more enquiring trainees and perhaps to assist inexperienced researchers to clarify their thinking before rushing into ill-conceived projects.
R. Sneyd Plymouth, UK E-mail: Robert.sneyd@pms.ac.uk doi:10.1093/bja/ael348

Medical Management of the Surgical Patient. A Textbook of Perioperative Medicine, 4th Edn. M. F. Lubin, (Editor in Chief ), R. B. Smith,, IIIT. F. Dodson,, N. O. Spell, and H. K. Walker, (editors). Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. pp. 813; indexed; illustrated. Price 85.00; US$ 150.00. ISBN 13 978-0-52182800-0. This is the latest edition of this book which has been fully revised, rewritten, and updated. The book is divided into two main sections. The rst part deals mainly with what the authors call medical management and the second part deals with specic surgical procedures and their individual complications. The various chapters are written by a total of 130 different authors, the vast majority of whom came from Atlanta, GA, USA (the home of the editors). All the chapters have a list of references and suggestions for further reading. The rst part of the book deals with medical management and work up of the patient for surgery. There are sections on cardiology, patients with hypertension, lung disease, haematological disease, infections, renal, endocrine, rheumatological, neurological disease as well as sections on the obese patient, the elderly, psychiatric and the peripartum patient. It was disappointing that this section did not include a section on the use of goaldirected therapy for the high-risk surgical patient. This area of surgical management is now well researched and well investigated and has been widely reported in many international journals including surgical ones. I was also surprised that there was not a section on preoperative cardiopulmonary exercise testing. These two areas of perioperative care are the two areas where there is scope for improvement in surgical outcome and yet neither gets any sort of mention. I feel this was a major omission. The chapters in this rst section are comprehensive for the subjects they cover, but limited. The rst chapter entitled Anaesthesia management of the surgical patient is a very simple overview of the anaesthesia for the surgical trainee. As an anaesthetist, I found it was a little limited. I did, however, nd the chapter on Ethical Considerations well worth reading. This rst section

reviewing the various medical systems and how to manage their various problems during the perioperative period was well written and comprehensive. The second part of the book is made up of 93 chapters dealing with individual potential complications associated with 93 different surgical operations. Some are quite short, but all give comprehensive information on potential complications and how to deal with them. This section is obviously intended for junior surgical staff and gives guidance for them during the post-operative period. If I were a junior surgical trainee, I think I would like to own this book or at very least be able to use it as a reference when dealing with pre- and post-operative problems. However, whether an anaesthetic trainee would nd the book quite as useful, I am not so sure. Most anaesthetic textbooks cover the same material as is presented in the rst section and from a much more anaesthetic point of view and therefore of much greater use to the anaesthetic trainee. This book is clearly aimed at the surgical trainee, and although there are many areas where anaesthesia and surgery interact, this book does not present the information in a way that is the most useful for the anaesthetist in training. Although the book may be useful addition to the wellstocked Anaesthetic Department library of large units, it would not be one of my rst choices for inclusion for those Departments whose budget is limited.
R. M. Grounds London, UK E-mail: m.grounds@blueyonder.co.uk doi:10.1093/bja/ael349

Downloaded from http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on November 28, 2013

Respiratory Emergencies, 1st Edn. A. M. Fein, S. Kamholz, and D. Ost (editors). Published by Hodder Arnold, London. Pp. 576; indexed; illustrated. Price 125.00; US$ 223.00. ISBN 10-0-340-81195-1. Some books have a dened readership and are written with a clear purpose. These targets (reader or purpose) are often identied in the introduction or foreword. This book has neither foreword nor introduction and as I read, I could not be sure that there was a clear theme to the book as a whole. However, the publisher says the book is intended to be a comprehensive practical reference to the management of acute respiratory problems in the hospital setting. It is a new book, with authors mainly from the USA. Despite the title, it is certainly not exclusively a book on emergencies. About half the chapters could be perhaps be considered acute medicine, so these are perhaps physicians emergencies. From the point of view of the anaesthetist, schooled in events that take seconds or minutes to develop, this is not sharp end stuff. For example, although the interesting chapter on drug-induced

279