Reviewer: David James Dries, MSE, MD (Regions Hospital)
Description: This 1,000-page, multiauthored book of critical care covers initial management of trauma and environmental insults along with traditional topics.
Purpose: Designed to be a comprehensive textbook, it is authored by leading intensivists from the Indian subcontinent along with carefully selected authorities from other countries including Canada, the United States, Hong Kong, Australia, and Japan. The integration of these contributions clearly adds a significant dimension to the scope of this book.
Audience: Anesthesiologists, surgeons, medical subspecialists, and emergency physicians called upon to resuscitate critically ill and injured patients are an appropriate audience.
Features: Initial chapters provide summaries of fundamental topics with multidisciplinary appeal, such as severity scoring, mechanical ventilation, sedation, analgesia, and extracorporeal cardiopulmonary support. Subsequent sections proceed through critical care principles based on organ system pathology and support strategies. Concluding sections focus on the obstetric patient, toxicology, and trauma, with a smattering of administrative topics. Chapters are terse and, at times, the flow of the concepts seems irregular. However, excellent use is made of tables, reference boxes, line drawings, and photographs. Radiographs reproduce with uneven quality but are clearly legible. Each chapter includes a reference list featuring key papers and occasional secondary sources. While most chapters feature works dating to within 3-5 years of publication, occasional chapters provide references that are far older. Concluding pages include laboratory and other reference values and sample neurological, cardiac, and pulmonary imaging. A detailed subject index includes separate citations for figures, boxes, tables, and flow charts.
Assessment: This is the finest comprehensive textbook of its kind originating largely from leading centers in India. The editors have made effective use of international contributors. Illustrations are very good to excellent. Western readers will note the absence of current data on blood product use and resuscitation strategies as well as many topics in critical care neurology, trauma, and burns. Despite this, the authors have produced a book that approaches many of the broad goals set for it.
