Product Description

Learning about specific diseases that are usually treated with surgery, as well as understanding the principles of managing surgical patients, is integral to the medical curriculum and an essential precursor to the study of operative surgery. The new 4th edition of "Principles and Practice of Surgery" presents a systematic approach to these key topics and familiarises students with surgical processes and protocols. This disease-based textbook is a surgical companion to the renowned Davidson's "Principles and Practice of Medicine", and is edited by an entirely new team of respected authorities in the field. Written as a complete, balanced text, it enables the reader to appreciate both the medical and surgical implications of diseases encountered on surgical wards.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #427390 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 656 pages

About the Author
James Garden is the series editor to the Companion to Specialist Surgical Practice series of seven volumes for Saunders. He is the author of Colour Atlasof Surgical Diagnosis (Mosby) and is a contributor to the current Third Edition of Principles & Practice of Surgery.

Andrew Bradbury is also a contributor to Macleod's Clinical Examination 10E. Other writing interests as yet unknown.

John Forsythe is the author of the Transplantation volume in the Companion to Specialist Surgical Practice series.

Customer Reviews

indispensible guide for medical students
This book is designed partially as a companion to Principles and Practice of Medicine. However, it is far superior - incredibly well written and clear. The first chapters cover pre- and post-operative care, including aspects such as anaesthesia, shock, transfusion and nutrition. Abdominal wall, gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary surgery is covered in detail, followed finally by chapters on surgical specialties including endocrine, thoracic, ENT and neurosurgery. As well as describing specific surgical treatments, the discussion of diseases is second to none, often much clearer than in medically-oriented textbooks. This is a must for all clinical medical students, not just those intending to specialise in surgery.

Over complicated and poorly written
I honestly struggle to believe that me and "A Customer" have read the same book. While the book does cover everything needed for surgery, including relavent physiology, anatomy, peri-operative care and specialities, it falls drastically short in it's written style. I am a 5th year medical student at Birmingham University and our surgery rotation is drawn up to accompany this book and it's a nightmare! I am more medically focussed but generally find surgical concepts easier to master. However this book succeeds in making simple surgical issues seem very complicated. The layout is generally good and there are some good anatomy diagrams and revision points, however the structure of each chapter is poor and often fails to take a clinical approach to the problems. For example, the section on bowel obstruction is confusingly structured and misses key areas.

My overall problem is that while all areas are covered the amount of text devoted to each is out of proportion to the commonality or seriousness of the problems being described, which I think can partially be attributed to the specialities of the editors. I found myself having to constantly look up common issues in other text books because they were inadequetly covered, where as some of the relative minutia of surgery (at least to a final year student) are covered in staggering detail.

Needless to say I am very glad I have this book from a library and have not bought it. There are many better surgical textbooks out there for medical students and I expect for more senior surgeons too. Personally, for medical students, I would recommend the oxford handbook of clinical surgery as a better primary text than this. I am all for longer, more complete texts. Unfortunately this one stretches out what could easily be half as long and just as "complete" and well rounded. I can also say the general opinion of fellow students at my university is that this text is poor and over-complicated and there is a feeling that we have this as our recommended text because one of the editors is linked to our university.

Apologies for ranting so negatively but I have somewhat been forced to use this book due to my syllabus and I have found several better texts on surgery that are all available here on amazon.co.uk.

Conclusion: Covers everything but is poorly edited and 'styled' so as to be difficult to live with!

Good
Arrived as per email instruction. Inner pages slightly dog-eared and creased which was a shame as sold as brand new.