Customer Reviews

Introduction to Vascular Scanning: A Guide for the Complete Beginner (Introductions to Vascular Technology)(3rd Edition)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Okay, I'm the author. In all these years no one has ever put a review up here, so I'm going to do it.

This is a guide to scanning the vascular system with ultrasound. It was meant to be a vascular-sonography version of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Volkswagen Repair, or the Pete Seeger banjo book: easy to read and make sense of, and practical. It takes the reader step-by-step through protocols for scanning first carotid arteries, then lower-extremity veins, LE arteries, upper extremities, and the abdomen (though that chapter is necessarily only introductory, since that's an especially complex area). In other words, rather than theory and interpretation, this book is about how to push the probe around and get the images and Doppler--very concrete.

My feedback on this book has always been positive: people tell me that they have been able to learn the techniques with a minimum of grief.

So what the hey, I'm giving myself five stars. Excuse my towering immodesty.

[Update 12.9.11: Now there are some reviews, and thanks for the kind words. Except for that one guy.
The 4th edition is a few months from being out as of now. It has been improved greatly, I think, with many scan images added and more coverage of abdominal Doppler, upper-extremity scanning, and a chapter on transcranial imaging, as well as much more about ergonomics. I'm looking forward to it.]

Don

(P.S.: By the way, you ARDMS registered people, this is good for 12 ARDMS-approved units. So are some other materials from daviespublishing.com.)

This book is an absolute must have for anyone in the field--not just for beginners. Donald Ridgway just has a way of explaining the vascular system & scanning techniques like no other. I understand the vascular system & I learned how to scan (pretty much on my own) thanks to his book. Very helpful. Great humor. I hope Donald Ridgway writes a guide for abdominal & ob/gyn scanning in the near future.

As a cardiologist with an interest in vascular imaging, this was a very good introduction. I appreciated the colloquial style and illustrations. The only critisism would be the absence of any mention of variations caused by vascular pathology

Having been an Registered Vascular Technologist since the 1980's I am always on the search for interesting material to keep my CME's up-to-date. Thanks to Don for providing 12 SDMS CME's for the experienced tech and a great review book for the beginner! I have just cruising through Amazon for another good review with CME's I will let you know how the search goes.

Update: 05-17-10: Since this was published I have also purchased Vascular Technology: An Illustrated Review, Fourth Edition that is also an excellent review for the RVT exam or 12 SDMS CME's. Great combo review!

Happy Reviewing!

This is an excellent book for the beginner. I highly recommend it.

Having just completed my first semester in my school's program, this is an amazing book for beginners to get an overall idea of the processes of scanning, and a little anatomy and physiology review as well. It's written much like a "for dummies" book, with a lot of humor, tips and tricks, and terminology that a beginner can understand. This is the gold standard book in my program for this reason, and I support that. It's so much easier to learn when the book has a fairly conversational and lighthearted tone like this.

Be warned, though, the author writes the book according to protocol at either his hospital or the way he learned it, and in such a changing field, you may learn differently. Don't be confused! Odds are you're going to learn many different protocols throughout your career, and what is acceptable in the book may get you looks at your hospital or schools. For example, he mentions doing compressions while in the longitudinal scan plane, which would get you a verbal bitchslap in my program. He also starts with carotid scanning, which is great if you want to master tricky maneuvers right away, but the way my program was set up, the book and in-class lectures didn't match because we read that chapter, but started hands-on practice on LE Venous. See it all as a learning opportunity! If you and your program are like my situation, see it as previewing or jumping ahead a bit. Apply your carotid readings to your legs, you may be the fastest to master everything this way!

Have fun and good luck!

Awesome book. You can't get more detail anywhere else. Walks you through, step by step. The author also has a great sense of humor, so it makes it quite the easy read.

Superb resource and I would agree with Don's own self review except for my two nits: First, it needs a better binding than the horrendous glue job that the Davies' printer provides. The pages fall out quickly. Second, we need an update edition which rearranges the illustrations and plates to be more useful. This would be an enormous improvement for learning and using the text "on the job". Perhaps, if it was printed with a quality ring-type (or smyth-sewn) binding with more color plates and illustrations that are facing on opposite pages to the relevant text when opened flat, then both of my requests for improving this great resource for vascular technologists would be met.

This book is EXCELLENT and I recommend it to ALL techs interested in improving their scanning technique. It is very well written, with the technologists in mind, and it has plenty of illustrations. I have been in the field for 5 years now and still carry this book with me as a reference book and to read for fun (great humor in the writing). I always find new things to learn from the book. I believe that Donald P. Ridgway did a great job and should be very proud.

Great way to start learning about vascular scanning. Book was in new condition and its very informative.