Customer Reviews

Understanding Anesthesia Equipment (Dorsch, Understanding Anesthesia Equipment)

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

 

 

An inevitable must for all new residents coming into the world of anaesthesia and medical technology.
Each new edition of the book gets more and more modern equipment oriented - losing out on the simplistic educational value of the older equipment. The gradual loss of the Non-rebreathing valves, from the second edition followed by Goldman vaporizer, EMO, OMV etc has reduced the level of 'ease of understanding' for fresh residents. Indeed, the focus on high tech is a drawback for practice of field/military/third world anaesthesia. There is something to be learnt from the old Ward, Ehrenwerth or even the Farman for youngsters.
Other than this, an excellent & comprehensive textbook. Could have done with a little more detail on advanced newer technologies being introduced.
Dr SK Singh, Cardiothoracic Anaesthesiologist, India

I am sad that this will be the last volume by authors I have relied on since I began in anesthesia in 1981. This is my third purchase of one of their works but I must say that I am dissappointed. Much of the charm of earlier editions (I own 1st and 4th) seems to be missing and there seems to be a reliance on manufacturer's supplied illustrations. Explanations and diagrams seem to come directly from the manufactuer.

That being said I would still recommend this book to students (both SRNAs and Resident physcians)as a required text. This book will alow you to be competent to trouble shoot a system while waiting for BME to arrive,or for you to feel confident to swap a machine in the middle of a case. It gives you a familiarization of much adjunct equipment before you use it the first time. It apprises you of possible hazards and deals with evnvironmental issues in anesthetizing locations.

Not their best work, but have not seen anyone else consistently cover this topic over the span of their work. A replacement will be hard to find, and future practitioners will suffer with their retirement.

Dorsch and Dorsch's Understanding Anesthesia Equipment is simply the most thorough book on anesthesia equipment out there that I am aware of. You will find most of the general basics of anesthesia equipment in Barash's Clinical Anesthesia and even more summary books like Stoelting's Basics of Anesthesia) and Morgan & Mikhail's Clinical Anesthesiology. Nevertheless, those books tend to not give you the ins-and-outs of all of the various equipment out there. Dorsch & Dorsch provide very detailed information ad nauseum. However, the endless black-and-white diagrams and black-and-white photos (though it appears very accurate) make the book very difficult to find the precise information that you are looking for. And the black-and-white diagrams tend to be much more difficult to understand than is necessary. For a book that has been through so many revisions and costs well upward of a hundred bucks, I would expect some color photos and some better constructed color diagrams.

The book does seem thorough, but is simply so much more difficult to use than it needs to be. Using Dorsch & Dorsch as a base text, we are strongly in need of a full revision aimed at formatting, photo, and diagram revisions.

The website included in the book offers a searchable text and a test bank. The search engine on the text is poor and very difficult to use. I find myself going to the chapter of interest and using a ctrl-f browser-based search of the page. The online quizzes are the exact same as is found at the end of each chapter. I have taken about half of the quizzes and have found errors in the online-based quiz bank in approximately half of those that I took. In need of some quality control. Nevertheless, I am appreciative of the online access to the text.

this is definitely the book to give you everything you need to understand anaesthesia equipment
its a "stay at home book" tho
big and heavy
the pages are not as easy to read since its all black and white and there's alot of material to read plus the pictures are not as many as i would have liked
but still a very good book
glad i got it for my residency
always on top of my info because of it

I'm not certain, but I think dorsch&dorsch is pretty much the ultimate manual for anesthesia equipment. from the workings of anesthesia machines to all the various types of airway devices and beyond, this book had more than i needed to be thoroughly familiar with the equipment used in providing excellent anesthesia care to patients!

Good book. Easy to follow and understand. I think there are too many unnecessary "generalized" examples in the text. For example the author will explain that the cylinder tanks should be turned off during machine use so you will know if the pipeline pressure is lost. Then he will put an example (this is my example)in such as...."one case occured when the anesthesia provider left the cyclinder tank on and lost pipeline supply during the case. He wasn't aware until the cylinder ran empty." I guess this isn't bad, but I don't think the examples add anything to the content.
Otherwise, the book is great!!! Would recommend.