Book review

Abstract

Bhawan J, Sau P, Byers HR and Skin Pathology Laboratory, Inc. Dermatopathology Interactive Atlas. Place of publication: Publisher, Year. $249.00 ($199.00 for residents with residency program director letter). I had the distinct pleasure of reviewing an educational CDROM from Drs Bhawan, Sau, and Byers and Skin Pathology Laboratory, Inc. entitled: Dermatopathology Interactive Atlas. I was immediately impressed with its aesthetic design, extensive content, and well thought out organizational layout. I found that this CDROM is logically and uniquely presented with a split screen format. The left side of the screen displays the pertinent clinical and histopathological details of 44 chapters of well written content while the right side of the screen displays the corresponding images germane to the discussion on the left. The thousands of well placed links and tabs within the 44 chapters allow the user to easily and logically navigate between thousands of high quality and well chosen clinical and dermatopathologic images-many of which have special stains or are ultrastructural scanning electron microscope images. This CDROM is clearly one of the best I have ever seen or had the opportunity to use. There is a powerful search engine built into the software which allows the user to query and find almost any dermatopathologic entity or subject which normally would be found only in a lengthy full sized textbook. There is also a tests section of the CDROM which does not have questions per se but has the whole gamut of images available without captions allowing the user to test his/her short and longterm memory by revisiting previously viewed images. In subsequent editions of this CDROM it would be very useful to residents and fellows to have questions added that would truly test their mastery of the chapters or subjects previously studied or reviewed. This CDROM is clearly an admirable effort representing the culmination of months, even years, of effort and careful consideration by the authors and their contributors to produce a top-notch electronic atlas and ‘text’. I highly recommend Dermatopathology Interactive Atlas not only for dermatology residents and dermatopathology fellows preparing for their boards, but also for more experienced practitioners of dermatopathology as a resource that would undoubtedly be useful in actual practice.