Reviewing a reference book or textbook
A review of a textbook, a reference work or a handbook sets the book against the ambition it states, describes how the book is organised and the apparatus a reader uses to find things in it, and records its shortcomings beside the verdict. A casebook or a collection of scholarly essays is described by the structure its cases or chapters share.
The ambition the book states
A review of a manual for writing pharmacovigilance documents quotes the author's description of the book as an attempt to produce "a comprehensive manual for all PV documents submitted to regulatory authorities throughout the life-cycle of any given medicinal product", and calls this an enormous task, since the overview of the documents required in the EU and the US lists so many. For many of the documents the book gives a generic template, with headings and guidance on the information that belongs under each, and the review finds that this makes it easy for a writer using the book as a reference to track down what a specific document needs. For the Summary of Clinical Safety and the Integrated Summary of Safety, the author also proposes a timeline for planning and collating source data and lists the key reviewers and their responsibilities, which the review calls a useful place to start for those who have not written these documents before.
A review of a textbook on whiplash-associated disorders (WADs) gives the book's purpose as not only to give the reader a complete understanding of the mechanics and treatment of these disorders but also to discuss the psychosocial aspects, long-term disability and legal issues often associated with them. It finds the chapters on functional anatomy and biomechanics well written and thoroughly researched, and, with their clear anatomical line drawings, a solid foundation for the more controversial chapters on examination and treatment. The discussions of chronic pain, depression and the medico-legal aspects are, in its judgement, the most interesting sections of the book.
A review of a 1,580-page concise cardiology textbook gives the uses its authors intend: board certification for cardiology fellows, recertification for practising cardiologists, and a reference for anaesthesiologists, nurses and internal medicine specialists. It sets the book against a problem: faculty have found it difficult to identify single-volume resources suitable for both students and residents, and the book solves this by covering comprehensive, up-to-date information in the subspecialty.
How the book is organised and what helps a reader use it
A review of the second edition of a textbook on manic-depressive illness opens on what the edition changed, an added subtitle that signals the authors' emphasis on the Kraepelin model, which includes all the recurrent mood disorders under the framework of manic-depressive illness. It then describes a finely granular table of contents, the five years the authors and collaborators spent processing and organising the material, the fields drawn on, from genetics, neurobiology, psychology, neuropsychology, sleep science and neuroanatomy to psychiatry, and the comorbid conditions covered. An early chapter on the high risk of suicide among these patients is followed by one on the clinical management of that risk, notes are footnoted at the end of each chapter, and extensive chapter references are listed at the back of the book. Against modern medicine's tendency to focus on diagnosis and treatment and sometimes lose sight of the afflicted individual, the review counts among the book's most surprising discoveries a chapter that explores evidence for a link between mood disorders and artistic creativity.
A review of a book on drug therapy that is both a textbook and a reference source counts 7 editors, more than 170 physician or pharmacist contributors, more than 140 reviewers and 99 chapters, each on a disease state or disorder. The book has a section for each organ system and a final section on diseases of infectious origin, and each disease is presented from aetiology through therapy, including diagnosis and expected clinical course, with an emphasis on drug treatment options and subsequent management. Learning objectives in each chapter heading serve readers seeking continuing medical education credits and anyone using the book as a text, and key concepts are listed at the beginning of each chapter and referenced throughout. The review finds that the tools that make it a great textbook also make it a valuable reference:
- lists, tables, charts and diagrams that consolidate material and make it easier to understand
- coloured headings and shading that break up the text and highlight concepts
- patient encounters that illustrate clinical situations and require practical application, balanced by Clinical Presentation and Diagnosis text boxes that give symptoms, signs, diagnostic tests and other information concisely
- a layout consistent enough throughout that a reader can anticipate how information will be presented
Information can be found by leafing through a chapter, the book is also well indexed, and it includes a full-text e-book download.
A book awards committee reviewing a gastroenterology and hepatology board-review book asked whether a textbook has to be boring and laden with complex sentences that make it incomprehensible, and agreed that this one was readable and interesting, its writing clear and succinct, with every term defined where it is introduced. The review calls the added features strong: suggested additional reading for each section, a comprehensive index and, among the strongest, a set of questions and answers at the end of each section. The questions are in the multiple-choice format of the board examinations, case histories ask the reader to consider the proper diagnosis, the answers are explained in detail, and the abbreviations a section uses are explained at the beginning of its questions and answers. The review takes one section as a random example: after a brief introduction it discusses aetiology, contributing factors, epidemiology, symptoms, establishing a diagnosis, diagnostic tests and treatment, with 11 charts and drawings and four full-colour photographs in 14 pages.
A review of a veterinary textbook on invertebrate medicine reports 29 chapters by 33 experts, organised by taxonomy and covering sponges, gastropods, cephalopods, spiders, insects, honeybees, echinoderms and many more, and ending with chapters on euthanasia, invertebrate animal welfare and invertebrate health issues in conservation. It names the elements that keep material which could become dry and didactic readable: headings and subheadings that give a clear idea of each section's content, bulleted lists that break up the text and highlight important concepts, frequent diagrams and colour and black-and-white photographs, well-organised tables in nearly every chapter, and a comprehensive reference list closing each chapter. It singles out the MRI and echocardiographic images as invaluable to the animal health specialist.
The review of the cardiology textbook reports 11 broad sections, each divided into chapters on specific topics written in a concise board-review format, with tables frequently used to summarise differential diagnoses, factors, diagnostic tests and other topics. Its references are concise and up to date but collected in a section at the end of the book, and the book is well illustrated, particularly in the imaging chapters.
A review of the 1,650-page sixth edition of Davis's Comprehensive Handbook of Laboratory and Diagnostic Tests With Nursing Implications describes how a reader finds a test: tests are listed alphabetically by their complete name, the index can be searched by abbreviation, synonym, disease, specimen type or test classification, and a body systems appendix groups common tests by system. Each test has a succinct monograph with cross-references, reference values in conventional and SI units with age- and gender-specific variations where applicable, and potential confounding factors such as the timing of the test, the handling of the specimen and drug interactions. The review records what the edition adds: monographs on genetic testing and on testing for toxins and infectious agents, new sections in each monograph on expected patient outcomes across the pre-test, intra-test and post-test phases and on complications and contraindications where applicable, and online interactive exercises, disease-specific case studies and monographs for newly approved tests.
Casebooks and essay collections
A review of Ethical Problem in Pediatrics: A Dozen Dilemmas reports the shape of each of its 12 situations a paediatrician may face: the author lays out five options, discusses each, gives his opinion of the best way to handle the situation and also presents a second opinion. The review gives the first situation as an example, a 14-year-old who comes to his physician in confidence believing he has gonorrhoea, in a family the physician knows well and where the parents finding out would cause great turmoil. The book starts from the view that what counts as ethical depends on our backgrounds, experiences, training and even prejudices. The review appreciates the second opinions, which showed that in some situations there is no one answer, and finds that the book will make the reader think, which is the author's goal.
A review of Louis R. Caplan's Stroke describes a book covering 26 kinds of stroke, in chapters by several stroke specialists including the author, each in a format that makes it very readable: a case history, then a discussion of the case and of the type of stroke it illustrates. Its example is a 64-year-old man who came to the emergency room describing sudden "graying of vision", a case used to study transient monocular vision loss and enhanced by an illustration showing how an embolus blocked the vascular supply to the eye. The question "What do you do now?" follows each case, and the key points that emphasise the essence of each case are, in the review's judgement, especially valuable. The case histories, clear explanations, illustrations and photos, and bullet points of salient information make it, the review concludes, a fine volume for quick reference on neurologic events.
A review of Jessica Gall Myrick's scholarly book The Role of Emotions in Preventative Health Communication (2015) reports that about half the volume covers theoretical foundations and what psychology and communication research know about individual emotions, and that the later chapters turn to the preventive health contexts, such as traditional campaigns and social media, in which a communicator might apply emotion-focused strategies. Each chapter is a stand-alone scholarly essay with its own section headings, context and reference list, and the introduction and conclusion tie the chapters into a metanarrative about what is known, but mostly about what is not known, about emotion in communication. So the author frequently relies on studies of emotion in entertainment messaging, and the review credits her keen awareness of the limitations of the research done up to the book's writing and of the methods it used. The review calls the book a primer that effectively argues for much-needed research.
Reservations and the verdict
The review of the pharmacovigilance manual disagrees with the author's description of pharmacovigilance medical writing as a discrete discipline, separate from general medical writing: for many medical writers it is not, and the level of a writer's involvement in it often depends on the size and structure of the company, with many smaller companies requiring the writer to play a major part in writing most or all of the documentation. It still recommends the book, judging that it contributes greatly to maintaining continuing professional development in this key area of medical writing.
The review of the whiplash textbook finds that the author describes the current guidelines and treatment protocols in a professional and balanced tone, but quotes one of his many bold statements, that "the patient must understand the uselessness of most modalities [for treatment of WADs] when used alone and that these modalities are time-consuming, expensive, and ineffectual", as giving some insight into his professional opinion of current management strategies. Its verdict is conditional: if the book's purpose was to inform at the basic level and question at the higher level, the author has achieved it. The book teaches the facts without skimming over the gaps in current knowledge, and makes a point of highlighting them, and the review finds that this property makes it essential reading for anyone involved in the area, from medical students and practising physicians to insurance and legal specialists and patients.
The review of the manic-depressive illness textbook finds that some dense sections would be more approachable had the authors interspersed tables and figures to highlight and summarise key points, and that graphics and illustrations are sparse except in the chapters based on neuroscience, while flow charts supplement the chapters on medical treatment.
The gastroenterology review finds the chapters less detailed and encyclopedic than a textbook's might be, but holding enough information to help a physician prepare for the board examination or to give useful review information.
The drug therapy book, like any book on an ever-changing landscape, carries a disclaimer to that effect, and its review still expects it to provide valuable information, with appropriate revisions, for many years to come.
The Davis review misses self-explanatory illustrations and graphic features to complement the difficult concepts in the test descriptions, while allowing that additional elements might have made the book larger. It finds that, given the pace of laboratory and medical research, the handbook does a good job of researching, compiling and indexing current literature, and that it is devoid of unnecessary and overly long explanations.