Nikki Blackwell, Carole Foot and Christopher Thomas* *1st edn, 340 p, paperback with illustrations, ISBN 978-0-7295-3802-2 Sydney, Churchill Livingstone (an Imprint of Elsevier), RRP $83.95, 2006
Military practitioners have a long association with the world of critical care and anaesthesia. Military practice at times calls upon critical management skills, and there is a considerable proportion of junior Australian Defence Force doctors whose career will take them into these areas.
The primary aim of the book appears to be to help trainees prepare for the Fellowship exams in Intensive Care and Anaesthesia, and it is thus divided into two major sections each dealing with the separate exams and the very different approaches needed for each, followed by areas of “common ground “ in data interpretation. Each major section contains subsections dealing with the broad aspects of exam preparation, the format of the exam itself, the common questions and scenarios the candidates are likely to encounter, and landmark (or at least the most frequently quoted) papers with commentaries. One of the great pleasures of reading through this book was that it does much more than simply offer “exam tips and tricks”. The sections on exam preparation contain much useful general advice for trainees in any discipline coming up to any exam. The section on data interpretation is excellent and is great review material. The “key papers” sections have well thoughtout and insightful comments (at least I think so as the reviewer agrees with most of the authors’ interpretations). There are very useful discussions of many common clinical cases presented in potential examination questions and a system is presented for providing answers to such questions which candidates would be well advised to use, at least until they have developed their own style and methods. There is no attempt to cover the fundamentals of the specialties and this is not the intention of the book. Those looking for a short textbook of intensive care or anaesthesia would be best served looking elsewhere. The necessities of time mean that the newest references are from around 2005, so Fellowship candidates should be expected to have a grasp of newer key papers for the examination. In short this book achieves considerably more than the title suggests and covers a lot of useful ground outside exam preparation. I would recommend it to all trainees, those who are considering careers in anaesthesia or intensive care, and all of those who are involved in teaching trainees in these disciplines. The book is well priced and deserves a place in individuals’ as well as departmental libraries. I commend the authors for an excellent effort and look forward to the next edition.
