Abstract
This is a weighty tome that succeeds in describing the broadening subspecialty of interventional pulmonology. Everything is covered including aspects of the specialty that I was not aware of but am now.
It is well written by the doyen of interventional pulmonologists.
It even includes subjects that some pulmonologists view as foreign territory including the upper airway and thoracic surgical techniques.
Where does this sit for noninterventional pulmonologists? It is a great book to reference for managing difficult patients and for increasing understanding and thus trying to direct the correct patients to interventional colleagues. I would have preferred more summary boxes or tables detailing for whom, why, and when the technique may prove beneficial. This would enhance the facility to dip in and out of the book when looking for guidance to specific questions.
The text can be overwhelming as a whole coming in at over 700 pages, although this is not how one would use the book.
Where does it sit for established or aspiring interventional colleagues? It gives a good basic underpinning to all the clinical questions and procedures available. From a personal perspective, as someone practicing some of these techniques, I would have liked to have seen an “Expert Top Tips” for some of the chapters to detail the common difficulties or issues that each expert author would be familiar with when performing or training practitioners to carry out specific procedures and their own personal perspective of how to overcome them.
Given the multimedia world that we inhabit, an accompanying DVD with such tips and video of “how to” would have been the icing on the cake and make the book more appealing to the new breed of interventional pulmonologists, potentially.
It is a very useful companion to all pulmonology teams and it is already out on loan to colleagues in my department.