Joseph Jankovic, John Mazziotta, Scott Pomeroy and Nancy Newman
Published April 2021
Published by Elsevier
Price £311.99 (eBook)
This is a substantial and scholarly review of clinical neurology, and I had the pleasure to review the eBook only, using the publisher’s inkling digital offering. This is a well tried and trusted format that not only works seamlessly but is easy to use. It can be viewed as an online web-based offering viewed on a computer screen without the need to download any data. As part of the purchase package, the book can also be downloaded onto smartphones and tablets as well via an app. Both the web based offering and app are easy to use.
On my iPhone, the app plus contents needs a meaty 1.28 GB of space for a full download. Of course, the advantage is that this huge offering is available offline without the need for any Internet access. Some people may miss the physical presence of a book, but this book is a 2 volume substantial offering, so is not really portable compared to its mobile digital sibling. So from now on when I refer to the book, I mean the digital offering
The book itself is massive review of things neurology and is clearly a detailed, in depth textbook for neurologists. If you want more about the background of this book watch this YouTube Video at https://youtu.be/G5IHJIlg7Fc On the book’s website’s you are greeted with the offering of a substantial number of videos (under multimedia resources before Chapter 1) which can be useful in their own right. In total there are 113 chapters all neatly laid out and headed into useful topic subjects. A quicker and more useful way to drill down to the section you are interested in, is to use the search function which is easy to use and quick to return results.
As I said, this book is a detailed clinical review of neurology and for many people, this will satisfy many of their knowledge needs. Healthcare professionals in associated specialities will also find this useful and of course being recently published it should be fairly uptodate.
A book like this will tend to be used as a reference source and for most people this could be a one stop shop to review a topic. For example, on Page 1747, there is a very good description of Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension which is easy to read and in depth but at the same time not too detailed. It is well tailored to clinician who wants a good, practical, reliable description that does not take too long to read. I found it easy to read from the computer screen.
It is not just specific topics that are well covered, Chapter 112 (Page 2049) specifically looks at neurological problems of pregnancy. There is a chapter outline with a list of topics and a hypertext link to the topic. It is not often that I have seen this specific subject area covered in such good detail and adds credence to the fact that this is a really good, all purpose reference book which is of sufficient depth for a specialist as well a non-specialist. I am sure if you dig deep enough, you will find there are gaps, but I would guess this would not happen often.
This is an expensive offering and so I would guess a potential purchaser would want to be a regular user to justify this kind of investment. Without doubt it, this is a quality product which is pricey but for the right person, this could be a marvellous, informative and educational resource.
Dr Harry Brown
28th June 2021