Editors: Joseph E. Parrillo, MD; and R. Phillip Dellinger, MD
Publisher: Elsevier Saunders – 1,490 pages
Book Review by: Nano Khilnani

Critical Care Medicine is a field within medicine, applying particularly to adults, which has grown very rapidly in the last 40 years, Drs. Parrillo and Dellinger point out. It grew from knowledge acquired and experience gained by doctors treating patients in the postoperative recovery room, in the coronary care unit, and in the modern intensive care unit, or ICU.

All of that specialized data, expertise, and insight gained by physicians and surgeons from treatment of critically ill patients warranted the creation of a single large book such as this one.

This book has been written for those physicians whose practice is primarily focused on critically-ill adult patients. Some of the medical specialties that relate to treating such patients are: anesthesiology, cardiology, emergency medicine, gastroenterology, general surgery, hematology, infectious medicine, intensive care medicine, nephrology, neurology, oncology, and pulmonary medicine.

It has extensive coverage of subjects, as we show you below by listing the titles of its nine Parts. The chapters are too numerous to list here.

Some 91 physicians in multidisciplinary specialties from all over the United States, and from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Turkey, and United Kingdom authored the 83 chapters of this book organized into nine Parts, namely:

  1. Critical Care Procedures, Monitoring and Pharmacology
  2. Critical Carte Cardiovascular Disease
  3. Critical Care Pulmonary Disease
  4. Critical Care Infectious Disease
  5. Renal Disease and Metabolic Disorders in the Critically Ill
  6. Neurologic Disease in the Critically Ill
  7. Physical and Toxic Injury in the Critically Ill
  8. Administrative, Ethical, and Psychological Issues in the Care of the Critically Ill
  9. Other Critical Care Disorders and Issues in the Critically Ill

The various chapters deal with critical care issues such as: acute respiratory failure, airway blockage, cardiac arrest, circulatory shock, critical care medicine in pregnancy, coma, delirium, diabetic emergency, gastrointestinal bleeding, head injury, hyperthermia, hypothermia, intensive care of the cancer patient, life-threatening asthma, liver failure, multiple organ failure, muscular paralysis, pancreatitis, poisoning, seizure, severe heart failure, stroke, toxic gas, and trauma.

Besides the content you will find in this book, there is a lot additional information, including videos of surgeries, available to you online for further development of your knowledge and practice of  critical care medicine. Just follow the instructions below.

If you are already registered,

  1. Login at www.expertconsult.com
  2. Scratch off your Activation Code  on inside front cover of your book to get your PIN Code
  3. Enter that into the Add a Title box
  4. Click Activate Now
  5. Click the title under My Titles 

If you are a first-time user,

Register

Activate your book

  • Scratch off your Activation Code  on inside front cover of your book to get your PIN Code
  • Enter that into the Enter Activation Code box
  • Click Activate Now
  • Click the title under My Titles

For technical assistance, email: [email protected]. Or call 1-800-401-9962 in the United States or 1-314-995-3200 outside the U.S. and Canada.

You can get even more valuable information from an allied website – www.ClinicalKey.com. This search engine of Elsevier Saunders is specially designed for doctors by providing them:

  1. Comprehensive Content – the most current, evidence-based answers available for every medical and surgical specialty
  2. Trusted Answers – content supplied by Elsevier, the world’s leading provider of health and science information
  3. Unrivaled Speed to Answer – faster, more relevant clinical answers, so you can spend less time searching and more time caring for your patients

How can you benefit from the use of this book? Among other benefits, you can:

  • Learn from the best ICU specialists with an increased number of international contributors
  • Stay in the forefront of critical care with up-to-date information on common complications in the ICU, such as severe sepsis, septic shock, surgical infections, neurogenic and anaphylactic shock, severe heart failure, acute coronary syndromes, and acute respiratory distress syndrome
  • Review clinical, diagnostic, and management issues pertaining to various conditions, diseases, and disorders of critically-ill patients
  • Get ExpertConsult access for the first time – full text online access, an image bank, instructional videos, and board review questions and answers at your fingertips.

This is a comprehensive text on the growing field of critical care medicine as well as a frequent reference source. It is authoritative in that more than 80 experts from around the world have shared their specialized knowledge, extensive and intensive experience, and invaluable insight in making this print book and online resource a very valuable one.

 

Editors:

Joseph E. Parrillo, MD is Chairman of the Heart and Vascular Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center; and Professor of Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Hackensack, New Jersey.

R. Phillip Dellinger, MD, MS is Professor of Medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University; and Director of Critical Care at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey.