Oxford Handbook of ENT and Head and Neck Surgery

Abstract

The Oxford Handbooks are a well-known series of publications that have armed many a generation of medical students and junior doctors with a pocketful of useful information whenever starting on any new clinical attachment. The original one on clinical medicine was almost an essential white coat item to be carried everywhere along with stethoscope, pen, notebook, tourniquet, British National Formulary, etc. This most recent addition to the series is a most welcome summary of current ENT practice. The back cover states that this book will be ‘an invaluable resource for trainees and consultants in ENT, specialist nurses, general practitioners, and allied health professionals’. While I would not dispute this, the main target audience is clearly the medical student and junior doctor as with other books in the series and it is representatives from these groups who are acknowledged as advisers along the way. The book is well set out, beginning with an overview of what the specialty is all about and how to get the most out of an ENT attachment. The main subject matter is generally well covered with chapters organised into anatomical sites. There are also chapters on common methods of presentation, emergencies and practical procedures, all cross referenced with the other chapters so that the book can be used in a problem-orientated way. This makes it especially valuable as a pocket companion on the wards. ENT is a specialty that has a lot of involvement with other health care professionals and it is good to see the roles of the audiologist, hearing therapist, speech and language therapist, dietician, ear-care nurse and cancer nurses discussed in a separate chapter. It is probably impossible to include everybody who supports different departments, although perhaps balance physiotherapists and teachers of the deaf would be useful inclusions in future. I must admit I had one or two niggles reading the book. The classification of chronic suppurative otitis media into safe or unsafe and tubotympanic or attico-antral is arguably less preferable to the more recent and simpler one of cholesteatoma or not and active or not. Similarly, I would not personally put ‘recurrent vestibulopathy’ in the same diagnostic box as ‘vascular loop syndrome’. I also wonder whether some specialists would take issue with post-nasal drip as a cause of chronic cough. That said, these are issues that occupy hours of specialist debate and often whole ENT conferences, so the authors can probably be forgiven for including their own views. Finally, I wonder whether the inclusion of more definitions and classifications may make this a useful book for those revising for postgraduate ENT examinations. This would obviously have to be carefully balanced against not making it too dry or complicated for the rest of the readership. Overall, I felt that this was an excellent book and would wholeheartedly recommend it to its target audience of medical students and juniors. One or two minor changes and inclusions could broaden its appeal still further.