Hospital for Sick Children Handbook of Pediatric Emergency Medicine Book

Written by top pediatricians from the world-famous Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, this handbook encapsulates 68 chapters covering assessment and management of emergency pediatric illness and injury. This book will allow the reader to rapidly access key topics in emergency medicine, with up-to-date evidence based management. This Handbook is intended as a tool that can be used at the bedside, covering both resuscitation and major medical emergencies, surgical problems, and minor procedures in the emergency setting.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Rebecca Hutchings, MD(Ochsner Clinic Foundation)
Description:The focus of this general handbook for the evidence-based practice of pediatric emergency medicine is on diagnosis and management with minimal discussion of pathophysiology. The guidelines, based on current literature, are laid out in a bulleted format.
Purpose:The purpose is to provide an evidence-based handbook for practitioners of pediatric emergency medicine. It is a successful survey of the current literature presented in an easily accessible form. With the present trends in medicine now focusing heavily on evidence-based guidelines, this is a much needed resource for physicians. The concise format makes it easy to use in day-to-day situations.
Audience:The authors of this book direct this book at emergency medicine practitioners. The bulleted format and basic management guidelines make this book best suited for resident physicians in emergency medicine, family practice, and pediatrics. It is an excellent management guide, but lacks some detail about the underlying causes of disease. For this reason, it might not be ideal for medical students who need to learn about the pathophysiology of disease before they begin to manage patients.
Features:The first section covers the management of critical illness in children, which includes topics such as pediatric advanced life support, advanced trauma life support, neonatal resuscitation, apparent life-threatening events, and shock. Subsequent chapters are organized in a systems-based approach. Particularly good are the chapters covering infectious, hematologic/oncologic, and neurologic emergencies.
Assessment:This is a great pocket guide for residents rotating through the emergency department, or taking call overnight on the wards. It does not fully explain all disease processes, but it answers the question "what should I do?" based on evidence-based principals from the current literature. Overall, I found this book very helpful. In emergency medicine, there often isn't time to peruse all the literature, or reference one of the major authoritative texts such as Tintinalli (Emergency Medicine: A Comprehensive Study Guide, 6th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2004)) or Rosen (Rosen's Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice, 6th edition, Marx et al. (Elsevier, 2006)). The chapter on dermatology and the accompanying images are not comprehensive enough. Dermatology questions are better addressed in a dedicated textbook with color illustrations such as Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine, 7th edition, Wolff et al. (McGraw-Hill, 2007). The section reviewing common emergency procedures is cursory; a better reference for this topic is Roberts' Clinical Procedures in Emergency Medicine, 4th edition (Elsevier, 2004).