Abstract
This is a pocket-sized 192-page book with full colour illustrations which, as the introduction states, is designed to serve as both a self-assessment book and a reference manual. It seems to have an unrealistically wide target audience as it claims to be aimed at senior medical students, intensive care specialists and surgeons! There are 272 questions which vary in format with multiple-choice, data analysis, radiology interpretation and short answer questions. A selection of material from a wide range of specialties is covered, including neonatal intensive care, general medicine and surgery, trauma, radiology, anaesthesia, bacteriology, physiology and pharmacology. Each page contains 2–3 questions with the answers including a comprehensive discussion on the following page. The illustrations are well presented and there is a wide range of interesting and relevant clinical material. Whilst reading through the book I found it difficult to imagine who would find it useful. Some of the questions were quite specialised and there appeared to be a surgical bias with a number of questions relating to the interpretation of endoscopic, surgical and CT scan appearances. I found an irritating number of mistakes within the text such as an incorrect anion gap equation and an incorrect ventilator waveform for pressure control inverse ratio ventilation. Although I found a few useful tips for the management of various ICU complications, the text and index were not comprehensive enough to be the useful reference manual as stated in the introduction. Overall, whilst some of the material in the book will be helpful for teaching material, I think that the content is both too wide ranging and specialised to be useful for those preparing for examinations which include intensive care.
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