Customer Reviews

Critical Care Medicine: The Essentials

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An excellent discussion of ICU/Critical Care Medicine pathophysiology and management approaches for principally the housestaff/junior fellow level. Chapters are pertinent and understandable. Does a good job of avoiding the tendency toward "cookbook" medicine found in several other CCM texts written at this level. End of chapter summaries are excellent. Focus is on developing understanding of key physiologic/pathophysiologic concepts and how they relate to monitoring, management, etc. rather than focusing on procedures and techniques. Should be the text of choice for medicine critical care rotations early in training as it really develops the appropriate foundation.

Perspective: I am a key faculty in an Internal Medidine training program, and we are developing a small resource library for the typical 4-week training rotations. We look for a good source of information that provides correlated pathophysiology with updated evidence-based management. To be reasonable with the goal of being readable in a 4 week period it should have up to 500-700 pages and be portable. We compared the Critical Care Medicine: The Essentials (JJ marini, AP Wheeler) with the Manual of Intensive Care Medicine (RS Irwin, JM Rippe), and The Washington Manual of Critical Care (Marin H Kollef et al). The CCM staff was concerned that there should be adequate discussions particularly on sepsis and ventilation management.
The Critical Care Medicine: The Essentials was chosen for the library as it fulfills our education requirements very satisfactorily. The discussions of airway and ventilation are excellent. The acid base and electrolytes chapters are well discussed and include common management errors to avoid. The chapters on nutrition and pharmacology are a welcome addition, sometimes overlooked in other references. The book does not include an illustrated section on invasive procedures, but this was not considered a limitation as most procedures are learned hands-on. Although there is no illustration on inserting a pulmonary artery catheter there are 47 pages on hemodynamic monitoring we considered more pertinent and expertly explained.

I recently bought this book and it really goes deep into subject - just the way I like it.

i bought this book because of the good ratings it has got, and also because it is recommended in my curriculum. I am planning to go into critical care after my residency, hence i was planning to read this book top to bottom. But the writing style is so obscure that it is very difficult to comprehend. From the first page itself, you would have to scratch your head over and over again on each paragraph. I am a very voluminous reader, but i couldnt really handle the obscurity with which this book is written. Everything seems very complicated in this book. Everything is written like a novel, without breaking it into points and trying to make it more digestible. I think this might be a good review book for those already in critical care practice, but maybe not so much for the residents who are just starting out. I finally decided to switch to Marino. I think either Marino, or Washington Manual or ACP manual on critical care should be more digestible than this.

Not bad, but the writing style is somewhat dense, making it difficult to read quickly. After a couple chapters I decided to switch to the ICU book by Marino and was happy I did. If you're a busy resident with limited time to read, go with Marino.

I can highly recommend Marini/Wheeler to all Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine fellows and all those practising Critical Care Medicine physicians who want to brush up their memories when something out of the ordinary occurs during rounds. It is easily transportable, not like some of those 20 pounds textbooks one finds in the libraries (and where they should remain!). I used Marini/Wheeler as a base for my Critical Care Medicine Boards in 1995 and subsequent recertification and only occasionally opened one of these huge textbooks for more detailed information my then chief had recommended at the begin of my Critical Care Medicine fellowship (which, dutifully, I had bought, only to let them collect dust on my bookshelves afterwards).

This is fairly well organized and thorough despite the small size of the text. You also cannot beat the price.

I have not yet run into any problems ever ordering through Amazon. I was hesitant with my first few orders, but now I order with confidence. The books that I ordered came in a very timely fashion, just as projected and promised. The quality of the book I ordered is like new, although its used. I will continue to order with confidence and with great results. The information in the book is what I wanted with a format that is easy to follow