Essence of Anesthesia Practice, 4th Edition

By Lee A Fleisher, MD, FACC

ISBN: 978-0-323-39497-0

Pub Date: 5/30/17

Reviewed by: David B. Glick, MD, MBA (University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine)

Description

Like its previous editions (the third edition was published six years ago), the fourth edition of Essence of Anesthesia Practice serves as an excellent and succinct reference on a wide range of disease states and medications (prescription and herbal) that can affect the course of an anesthetic. This edition includes the electronic version of the book, which makes it possible to access the information on the go without the burden of carrying the 500+ page print version.

Purpose

The purpose, according to the authors, is to “provide a concise summary that allows you to act for your patients with more complete knowledge of the pathophysiology of both common and rare conditions seen in the perioperative period as well as the medications used to treat these conditions.” It serves as an excellent refresher the night before a case involving a comorbid disease state you are not familiar with or a medication (especially the herbal treatments) whose side effects you might not recall. The topic summaries cover all the primary concerns for the perioperative management of patients, yet can be read in five minutes or less.

Audience

As such, the book has value for both new trainees and seasoned practitioners. Relatively inexperienced trainees will find the book useful for nearly every case they do as a means of putting together all the competing management concerns that a patient will pose. More experienced practitioners will find the book invaluable when they are confronted with a disease or medication that they are unfamiliar with and need to be sure that they will not introduce any additional risks with their planned anesthetic.

Features

The book covers an extremely broad collection of diseases (both adult and pediatric) and outlines the anesthetic issues posed by the various disease states. The book is arranged in alphabetical order, so the topics are easy to navigate. Of note, where previous editions started a new page for each topic, this edition runs the topics together. Also, sections in the previous editions describing common surgical procedures and laboratory testing have been removed to make room for greater coverage of rarer disease states. This is a reasonable change, as other books offer greater detail (and illustrations) of surgical procedures for interested readers.

Assessment

For the past 20 years, this book has been one of the most used books, on my bookshelf. It’s a fantastic resource when you want to review specific anesthetic challenges posed by a patient’s comorbidity or drug usage.

Doody’s Review Service Weighted Numerical Score: 93 – 4 Stars!