Head, Neck and Dental Emergencies

Abstract

This attractively presented little book is a further addition to the Oxford Handbook series. It is in the pocket reference format with a plastic flexicover to which we have become accustomed since the first Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine was first published 20 years ago and has matching ribbon page markers in yellow and red. It aims to provide the reader with a working approach to diagnosis and management of patients presenting in the accident and emergency department, concentrating as would be expected from the title on urgent and emergency problems above the collar bones. However, of necessity, the first three chapters covering general assessment, first aid measures and infections take a rather more whole body approach, as do the concluding glossary and last two sections on burns and miscellaneous conditions. The bulk of the book runs sequentially through trauma and other emergency conditions involving the head, neck, face, ears, eyes, mouth and salivary glands. The editor points out that many of the subjects covered are not true emergencies that may immediately threaten life, sight or limb but that, nevertheless, the text endeavours to cover the majority of conditions in the anatomical region for which patients regularly attend the casualty department. On average, one topic within each overall heading is covered over three pages with a system of four icons used throughout, to allow rapid identification of the degree of urgency. The explanatory key to the icons appears helpfully on both the inside front cover and again within the preface. Emergency care by its very nature should be as simple and as quick as possible. To this end, the layout comprising short notes, diagrams and photographs together with a remarkably comprehensive index provides the reader with an easily assimilated set of information, which should prove extremely valuable in an emergency situation. There is an emphasis on maintaining a high index of suspicion and on frequent re-assessment to ensure that pathology and potential complications are not missed. A minor disappointment was the quality of some of the photographs, the majority of which are in monochrome, that contrasts with those in colour printed on higher quality paper in the chapter devoted to the eye. The editor, who has extensive experience as a trauma team leader and who is now based in Belfast, has drawn together 14 contributors from a range of surgical specialties, together with ophthalmology and dentistry. The book is recommended mainly for junior doctors and also nurses in accident and emergency, oral and maxillofacial surgery, ENT, ophthalmology, anaesthetics and plastic surgery, as well as for undergraduates. However, it is likely to have wider appeal even to more senior colleagues, who may not regularly deal with emergencies around the head and neck but who occasionally may be called upon to do so.