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APS Bulletin • Volume 9, Number 1, January/February 1999

Resource Reviews

John D. Loeser, MD, Department Editor

Handbook for Pain Management

Reviewed by John D. Loeser, MD

R.T. Kingdon, K.J. Stanley, & R.J. Kizior, Saunders, Philadelphia, 1998, 320 pages, $26 (softcover), ISBN 0-7216-6329

This is a pocket-sized softcover book written mainly by nurses expressly for nurses. It does a good job covering multiple aspects of the clinical pain world, from acute pain to chronic pain and from the young to the elderly. It includes a healthy amount of the biopsychosocial model, which has been incorporated far more by the nursing profession than by the medical, to the detriment of the latter. An excellent discussion of pain management for substance-abusing patients is also included. There is a reasonably complete index and a glossary of pain terms. The definition of suffering is not only incomplete but is a shock, considering the viewpoints espoused in the text. This negative affective response is engendered by far more than pain, and the failure to recognize this fact is one of the greatest failings of modern medicine. As far as such handbooks go, this appears to be a good one. There is no shortage of such books, however, and no absolute standard for their evaluation exists. The prudent teacher or student should review the options before selecting a text of this sort.

John D. Loeser is professor of neurological surgery and anesthesiology at the University of Washington in Seattle.

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