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Cl TEXTBOOK OF PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY
MEDICINE (3rd ed). Edited by GR Fleisher, S Lud-
wig, 1804 pp. Baltimore, Williams &Wilkins, 1993,
$160.00.
The third edition of the Textbook of Pediatric Emer-
gency Medicine is an outstanding resource and a re-
quirement for an emergency department’s library.
Written to support a broad range of practitioners,
this text serves as an excellent reference for anyone
who will treat children in the emergent care setting.
The textbook is the work of 117 contributors
made up of pediatric emergency medicine specialists
and pediatric subspecialists. The textbook is ex-
tremely pleasing in that, unlike many large reference
texts, the subspecialty areas manage to maintain their
relevance to the practice of emergency medicine.
The textbook is divided into seven sections:
Life ThreateningEmergencies
Signsand Symptoms
Medical Emergencies
Trauma
SurgicalEmergencies
Psycho-SocialEmergencies
Procedures
This organizational strategy provides a logical divi-
sion of information that is easily referenced. It is
precisely the ease of reference and division of infor-
mation that makes this text so useful in the emer-
gency department.
Section 1 on “Life Threatening Emergencies” cov-
ers items central to emergency care such as resuscita-
tion and airway management. Although it covers a
broad range of issues from analgesia to transport, it
is focused on the NOW decisions often made in the
emergency department.
The invaluable information in the “Signs and
Symptoms” section is uniquely helpful in diagnostic
dilemmas. It covers the diagnostic approach to 78
different clinical signs or symptoms. Once the diag-
nosis is made or suspected, management information
follows in the subsequent sections.
The section on medical emergencies is primarily
system oriented. It also contains useful sections on
toxicological and environmental emergencies.
The section on trauma begins with an excellent
overview of the injured child and is then divided into
subspecialty areas of trauma from burns to ocular
injuries. The section on surgical emergencies is also
primarily divided into surgical subspecialty areas.
The section on psycho-social emergenciesis a must
The Journal of Emergency Medlclne
for the practicing emergency physician. The section
addresses many difficult scenarios that may present
to the emergency department.
Finally, the procedures section nicely rounds out
this text. The text in this section is somewhat brief
but is enhanced by a large number of illustrative dia-
grams.
Noteworthy points include the index, which is 60
pageslong and quite complete. The textbook also has
excellent internal referencing. The figures and tables
are very useful, and the radiographic images repro-
duced extremely well. The section on dermatology,
however, would benefit from color pictures.
The textbook has been criticized for being overly
conservative. This is clearly a matter of opinion, and
one can argue that a reference text on pediatric emer-
gency medicine should have a conservative nature.
The most significant criticism of the text is not
with its content but with its binding. The text used
for this review demonstrated wear out of proportion
to the age of the text.
Overall this is an outstanding reference that will
serve its reader well.
Arthur M. Pancioli, MD
University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Cincinnati, Ohio
0 PEDIATRIC FRACTURES-A PRACTICAL AP-
PROACH TO ASSESSMENT AND TREATMENT.
Edited by GD MacEwen, JR Kasser, SD Heinrich,
442 pp. Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins, 1993,
$120.00.
Broken bones and other orthopedic conditions in
children are almost a prerequisite for reaching adult-
hood. This well-written and concise text, while in-
tended primarily for the practicing orthopedic physi-
cian, will serve as an excellent resource for the
emergency physician. The senior editor, Dr. G. Dean
MacEwen, is a nationally recognized authority in the
field of pediatric orthopedic surgery. Together with
Dr. Stephen Heinrich, also from Louisiana State
University Medical School, and Dr. Kasser from
Harvard Medical School, they have created a text
that lives up to their stated expectations -“a practical
approach to the assessmentand treatment” of ortho-
pedic injuries in the pediatric population. The con-
tents are organized into five major sections: initial
evaluation and treatment, the upper extremity, the