"Boy's own manual" of trauma | |
A simple guide to trauma, 5th ed. R L Huckstep. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone 1995 (viii + 514 pp.). ISBN: 0-443-04679-4. |
One of the scoops of my medical education was to acquire, in 1978, a
second edition of this wonderful manual. I recall it having a "Boy's
own annual" approach, and dealing with everything from airline
crashes to insects in ears.
The first edition was published in 1970, while Professor Huckstep worked in the then-tumultuous world of Idi Amin's Uganda. The layout and graphics have been continually refined, and information updated, but it has maintained its essence, with an emphasis on the basics. There are two new chapters since the previous edition -- on accident site/emergency management and hospital emergency care. To maintain the pocket-size format, some information had to be left out -- in the next edition I'd like to see, for example, the size of the endotracheal tube to use in cricothyroidotomy. The book is highly appropriate for medical students, hospital doctors, generalists -- particularly those in rural practice -- and the nurses, paramedics and physiotherapists who support us. Tim Flanagan
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