Handy guide to gastroenterology | |
Blackwell's primary care essentials: gastrointestinal and liver disease. David W Hay. Malden MA: Blackwell Science, 2002 (xxv + 380 pp). ISBN 0 632 04503 5. |
This book is a small
but detailed gastroenterology textbook and is one of the Primary care essentials series (others include cardiology and emergency medicine). The author is not a gastroenterologist, but Assistant Professor of Community Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Maine, USA.
The book was published in November 2001 and contains relatively up-to-date information. It has broad appeal, which I believe would make it useful to the practising gastroenterologist, general physician, medical registrar and medical student. Emphasis is on the most commonly encountered and most serious disorders. References are plentiful, current, and scattered throughout the text to support clinical points. The book is small and easy to handle, fitting easily into a white-coat pocket which allows for its use around the wards. It is a little difficult to read as there is no break in a very tightly packed text — in nearly 400 pages there are no diagrams, tables or graphs. The information is detailed, most topics are well covered and there are frequent practical tips. The “shopping list” approach is useful, but the abbreviations take some getting used to. For its size it’s quite expensive, but of course it’s much cheaper than the larger standard textbooks. Andrew W Jakobovits
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