Jennifer Shin and Michael Cunningham from Boston, USA have published an impressive book with 37 chapters in 1226 pages. It aims to enable the reader to retain ENT knowledge by presenting it in a way that enforces application of knowledge, an ‘active learning’ process.
There is deliberate repetition of key facts throughout the book, in different subsections and in different formats, to stimulate retention of information. This is further augmented with different fonts with bold and italics utilised to highlight key and subspecialist knowledge, respectively.
The case presentations guide the reader through common but challenging cases, slowly building up the available information and providing high quality investigation results, to guide the reader through to the management of the case.
The focus questions chapter is a quick-fire of pertinent and delving questions on the most encountered topics within all areas of otolaryngology practice with dedicated chapters for salivary, parathyroid and the facial nerve.
By far, the stand out sections of this book are the radiology and histopathology chapters. These build on the previous chapters with a plethora of detailed high quality pictures, annotated and explained in order to demystify an area that is unfamiliar to those graduating from medical schools in the last decade.
I feel that this book has a place on the bookshelf of ENT registrars and residents on both sides of the Atlantic. It provides a good overall understanding and equips them with the armentarium to tackle more complex cases as well as solidify knowledge in areas they may not have been exposed to. The book is rich in diagrams, charts, pictures, MCQs, case scenarios and much more in its own interactive style. A more substantive alternative to a dozen or so smaller publications seen in the last decade.
