Baxter AB. Emergency Imaging: A Practical Guide. Thieme; 2015; 580 pp; 1727 ill; $99.99
Intended for radiology residents who are about to cover the ER/Trauma area for the first time, and for those who are currently doing so, this 580-page book covers a large number of abnormalities that are likely to be encountered.
Like most books of this nature, the findings are obvious on the displayed images. As we all know, the issue is not often “what is the diagnosis?” but rather “is there an abnormality?” This book (along with virtually all others) does not test or challenge the reader to find/uncover the abnormality. An educational contribution along those lines would, in order to be effective, hhave to be an scrollable set of images online, in which the reader was challenged to find and make the diagnosis.
Those comments aside, this book displays images on the left-hand side and the diagnosis on the right-hand side so that the answer really is never withheld from the reader. Nonetheless, the images are proper and the accompanying text is adequate. The brain, head and neck, and spine are covered in nearly 200 pages (⅓ of the book).
After an introduction of 8 pages, the following are the sections covered: Brain, Head and Neck, Spine, Chest, Abdomen and Pelvis, Musculoskeletal, Pediatrics. As an exercise, it is valuable to go through each set of images and read the accompanying legend and text. As expected, the images are dominated by CT and plain film. Only of few scattered sonograms, and no MRIs, are shown.
This would be a worthwhile text to place in the ER radiology area so all those rotating through can refer to the book as needed.
