Surgical Pain Management: A Complete Guide to Implantable and Interventional Pain Therapies

Edited by Sanjeet Narang, Alison Weisheipl, Edgar L. RossH. Ellis. Published by Oxford University Press.

Interventional Pain Medicine is an emerging specialty, devoted to the use of interventional techniques especially implantable drug delivery system for chronic pain sufferers. This book is jointly written by three anesthesia faculty practicing pain and interventional therapy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), a highly reputed teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. The book is the reflection of their collective experience while providing care for chronic pain patients with teaching and training interventional program.

The book is written in two segments having four chapters in Part One and twelve chapters in Part Two. The first part focuses on basics of developing a multidisciplinary team to provide an optimal care to those who require minimally surgical interventions for chronic pain. The team building among pain physicians, surgeons, nurses and palliative care team has been highlighted. This part systematically elaborates the work flow of interdisciplinary team including organization of an implant service, anesthesia care of patients undergoing implants with all co-morbidities, psychological evaluation of chronic pain sufferers and then their education about the implant and its care. Chapter 2 covers all aspects of patient care requiring such interventions. They generally have multiple medical problems so anesthetic consideration is vital. In addition authors emphasized that patient education about the indication and their understanding about care of such implant is utmost important as these patients are usually terminally ill or may had multiple surgeries with failed conservative management.

While reviewing the second part of the book, I found myself deeply engaged in common minimally invasive surgical interventions to most advanced deep brain stimulation in refractory chronic pain. This part nicely covers all minimally surgical interventions such as implantable drug delivery system externalized epidural infusion system, dorsal column stimulation, peripheral nerve stimulation, craniofacial nerve stimulation, field stimulation and sacral nerve stimulation. The authors highlighted the treatment of discogenic pain, vertebral augmentation, percutaneous lumbar decompression, endovenous ablation and deep brain stimulation.

This book has fourteen appendices with sixteen chapters. This additional and supplementary information provides guidance to interdisciplinary team about how the care can be standardized in complex patients with current evidence available.

I am confident that this book is an excellent addition in Interventional Pain disciplines. The flow and content in most of the chapters is adequate and focused towards the title of the chapter. However, I found some chapters contain excessive information. Overall this is a well written and informative guide for all practicing physicians who are struggling in this new evolving specialty for providing optimal care to chronic pain sufferers.

Gauhar Afshan

The Salma & Amin Mohammad Lakhani Family Chair & Professor of Anesthesia

Department of Anesthesiology

Aga Khan University, Karachi (Pakistan)

E-mail: gauhar.afshan@aku.edu

PREPARING TO PASS THE FRCA, 1^ST EDITION

Dr. Caroline Whymark (MBChB, FRCA)

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX26DP, UK

Oxford University Press

ISBN 978-0-19-874868-7

Pages: 78, Format: Paperback, Price: 19.99 GBP

“Preparing to Pass the FRCA: Strategies for Exam Success”, is a book which helps in managing personal capabilities, skills and time in an efficient manner to increase chances of success in the postgraduate exam.

This book consists of three parts, first of which is “The Essentials”. This is useful for anybody who plans to start preparation for not only in anesthesia, but in any other discipline. It highlights the reasons for high failure rates in postgraduate exams and suggests ways to improve the skills required to succeed. Different aspects related to adult learning are exquisitely depicted with the help of simple graphs.

Parts two and three deal with each element of Primary and Final FRCA exam separately, and give techniques and tips on how to attempt different types of questions, along with their answers. It helps plan revision in an organized and structured manner, so you manage to cover the breadth of topics in FRCA syllabus effectively and in a timely manner.

The author clearly understands that professional knowledge and skill are not the only requirements to pass the exam. It actually depends on how you convey your knowledge through writing, viva and skill demonstrations.

The book addresses many problems that a postgraduate candidate faces while preparing to take the exam. It describes issues in adult learning and covers motivation, time management, improving study skills and coping with stress while managing other commitments of life. This is a book that can be used as a planner to start studying for the FRCA.

Dr. Caroline Whymark is a consultant anesthesiologist at University Hospital, Crosshouse, Kilmarnoch, Scotland, UK.

Shahida Tasneem

Consultant Anesthesiologist

KRL General Hospital, G-9/1, Islamabad (Pakistan)

E-mail: shahida.tasneem2@gmail.com