Getting Started in Clinical Radiology: From Image to Diagnosis Book

A few years ago, I discovered a plethora of friends around me who were undergoing IVF (in vitro fertilization) and delved into this fascinating area of expertise that was like a ticking time bomb for men and women (long story short: people who want to have kids shouldn't even consider birth control -- it's not as easy as people make it out to be). Reading this book was an offshoot of that fascination and this book does a really good job of laying out short, concise one-page cases of every kind of OBGYN issues that could crop up. Well, probably nearly. It lays it the initial consultation/patient overview in a short summary of a few paragraphs, the blood tests results/ultrasound scans (if any), and then asks: what is the recommended course for the woman?

There follows another one page synopsis of what has gone wrong, what are the management options, and what are the risk factors to such health issues. The pro of this book is how concise it is, and the multiple paragraph format is visually pleasing. To a layperson like me, reading this book was like reading so many (100) mini-mysteries. For someone who's interested in all the risks and dangers of the female reproductive system, this is a thoroughly good overview that's not dry because it leads with a host of examples. The narrative is also not overly medical as to confuse the non-medical person.

I would posit that to a medical personnel with years of experience that there might be dispute as to the management options. I know cases with a few of the issues raised, and some of the possible solutions are maybe far too extreme for the issue, and there are other options than the ones posed. For example: excessive menstrual bleeding & cramping + bleeding between periods + ultrasound that revealed endometrial polyps = possible hysterectomy if pain is unmanageable. This seemed extreme to me and I know that curettage (gentle shaving down of uterus) is considered an outdated method of treating this issue especially for western countries (this book was published in the UK), but it is still a working procedure that is less invasive than hysterectomy or even laparascopy (keyhole surgery to look inside the uterus) for treating the pain...considering that adhesions (internal scarring) could lead to other or worse pain!

Also, it would have been nice if all of the cases had follow-up conclusions rather than a handful. But a very interesting read that I devoured in a few days and a great overview of the subject. I wouldn't mind reading a book of the same format for other medical fields.