Essentials of Paramedic Care

Rating:
Summary: 2,000+ Pages In Search of an Editor
Review: This book contains an appalling numbers of errors, inconsistencies, contradictions, typos, and other editorial oversights. The errors run the gamut: medication dosage errors, math errors, photos and graphics that do not math the description, spelling errors, misinterpretation of statistics, and more. This book may not kill any patients, but it will likely result in many students having to re-take their paramedic certification exams. You will do well to select another text whose authors and editor took the time to check their work.

Rating:
Summary: was there even an editor for this book?
Review: This book is FULL of errors, it contridicts itself constantly, and over some very important issues. I would not recommend this book to anyone who is serious about this field. A basic word processor would have caught more errors than the editor did. I feel that if I would have used this book alone (without purchasing additional books from another source) that I would definatly NOT be prepaired to sit for National Registry.

Rating:
Summary: A Complete Compendium of Errors
Review: This is NOT a text book, it is an anthology of related articles by different authors. The editor did a very poor job. The text is filled with substantive errors from the trivial to life threatening. Learning is a challenge because the authors of the various chapters (not surprisingly) have varying views but the editor did nothing to highlight, harmonize or in any way deal with this. The result, one chapter says "A" is the primary/most important whatever, while two chapters later someone else says that "B" is the primary/most important whatever, and four chapters later another author says that "C" is the primary/most important whatever. One example: "flail segment" is defined in three mutually inconsistent ways. Spelling errors abound, like "plural" for "pleural." Several authors appear to have little familiarity with prehospital care since they discuss the importance of tests (e.g., ABG) not available in the field. If you read the book and learn what it says without understanding the concepts, you will probably do well on the Brady-provided tests, which are pulled from the text by someone who had no clue about the subject matter; if you understand the concepts, you will find that the questions often have more than one equally valid answer. Avoid this disaster at all costs.