Customer Reviews

Principles of Addiction Medicine

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

 

 

This will be a comparatively brief - and thus inadequate - review. It is entered to fill a void, as this text can't go on being listed with this site without some commentary.

Addiction medicine, and by extension addiction psychiatry constitute fields in early development when placed against their clinical counterparts of surgery, obstetrics, general medicine. The illness states covered in addictions are quite nearly as old as civilized humanity, so the problem isn't want of exposure. It has largely been want of interest. Probably not until the past two centuries have there been: 1) sufficiently effective treatments as to excite the interest of physicians, 2) suficiently sensitive technical and social systems that the consequences of addictions are now clearly seen.

As recently as ten years ago, there was a child's fistful of texts on addictions: Norman Miller's, Marc Shuckitt's, a crude syllabus by the American Society of Addiction Medicine - intentionaly leaving out the many excellent monographs that actually created the field, by Stephanie Brown, George Vaillant, and others. With reformulation of a 1981 textbook on substance abuse, Joyce Lowinson and Pedro Ruiz and colleagues added enormously to the effort to provide a single source that could be used by graduate trainees in addictions. But generally, the larger the text, the greater the need to spread the responsibility across a greater number of authors; and the more difficult the task of cohering the topics and avoiding overlap.

In 1998, Allan Graham and Terry Schultz took the loose-leaf edition of ASAM's Principles and both reformulated and re-formatted it, resulting in this 2nd Edition. The editorial rigor shows in the careful dovetailing of topics and a reduction in redundancy, as well as in the successful accomplishment of comprehensiveness. I suspect that Dr. Schultz's own criticism would have been the need for more on neuroscience, and that will likely be remedied in the next edition. The assigment of only 4 stars of a possible 5 does not indicate significant disappointment; I simply do not think that it is possible to achieve a completely comprehensive and readable effort when working from so huge a group of contributors, on the first pass. I want to save the fifth star for the next edition.

This text is presently employed by the John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, Addiction Psychiatry Residency Program as one of four core office references. This does not constitute an official endorsement by the University of Hawaii per se.

Like the reviewer above, I, too, bought the "2007" edition (thinking it was the new edition and was just using the old picture of the text) and just received the same old Third Edition (mine appears to be unused). Amazon has now updated the price, still pictures the Third Edition, and now says "out of stock." I'll be sending this one back. I already have it!

Here's the scoop. The Fourth Edition is expected to be published March 2009.

As to the 2003 Third Edition, it is excellent in every way. If you can't wait to start reading, get a used copy. Save your big bucks for the Fourth Edition when it is published next year.

I have the previous edition, published 2003. This supposedly new edition (May 2007) is NO DIFFERENT than the older one. Moreover, when I purchased this "new" copy from Amazon, I was sent an obviously used copy.

I've written to the publisher expressing my concerns, and will post their message when they respond.

This reference textbook is a "must-have" for those practitioners who treat addicts.

It contains the research that has made its way from lab to bedside.

In view of recent parity for mental health and substance abuse treatment, this

text has become even more valuable.