Poisoning and Drug Overdose

While reading this book I was on duty for the A&E department and looked up some of the more unusual conditions that presented that day. Brodie's abscess was not listed in the index and the only reference to osteomyelitis in children was one paragraph in a book of over a thousand pages. Fracture/dislocation of the ankle with an obvious threat to the viability of the overlying skin was not covered. There is an algorithm for treating fractures but no mention is made of the importance of preserving circulation to the skin in severe dislocations. The book generally covers the unusual, such as, environmental emergencies quite well but day to day emergencies suffer as they are given equal coverage to the more exotic. In summary this is an interesting book that is well-produced and contains some very well prepared and informative pieces. Overall, however, it does not provide enough information on the more common emergencies for it to be of daily use in an A&E department. Furthermore, it is written entirely for the North American market and many of its recommendations are clearly not applicable to British Practice. I will keep the book and use it for easy access to references on 'intermediate exotica'. It will not provide the department with an easily useable reference book nor provide myself with a definitive text on the rarer conditions that we occasionally see.