Complications of Regional Anesthesia

Rating:
Summary: What every regional anesthesia patient should know....
Review: First, let me state that I am a lay person and that I found this book only after experiencing my own epidural complications. The book is well-organized, concise (sometimes a little too concise when a little more explanation would help), and only requires a reasonable number of trips to the medical dictionary if one is a lay reader. There are a few redundancies in the book (authors of individual chapters overlapping each other), but only a few. It is definitely not dry reading if there are things in there one needs to know!

I think Dr. Finucane has done a service to both the anesthesia provider community and the health care consumer to gather this information in a single volume. With regard to my own experiences, it answered many of my questions and made my remaining questions much more intelligent. I would recommend it highly to anyone considering regional anesthesia, or anyone considering another anesthesia method when regional anesthesia would also be a valid choice for a given procedure. The best way to have regional anesthesia is with a thorough understanding of risks and possible complications, and with an active commitment of the designated anesthesia provider to minimize those risks and complications. If you read this book before your anesthesia (instead of afterwards, like I did), you will be in an excellent position to obtain the former and judge the latter. Thank you, Dr. Finucane.

Rating:
Summary: A 'must read' for trainees and practioners in regional anes
Review: With the recent resurgence in regional anesthesia and the increase in courses in regional anesthesia techniques, this book fills an important aspect of practice not usually addressed. I was introduced to this important area with a lecture of this topic by Dr Finucane himself in a Bombay conference on anesthesia. In this book he highlighted an important idea that is lacking in most regional anesthesia training programs all over the world - that complications and its treatment ought to be taught at the beginning. The chapters were well organised, laid out and explanations simple and well explained. The areas covered were very comprehensive covering Obstetric, Acute and Chronic Pain Management involving various aspects as anatomy, physiology, pathology and management as well as prevention. I would like to congratulate Dr. Finucane and his contributors for this book.