Publications
APS Bulletin • Volume 11, Number 1, January/February 2001
Resource Reviews
John D. Loeser, MD, Department Editor
Topics in Palliative Care (Vol. 4)
Reviewed by Perry G. Fine, MD
R.K. Portenoy & E. Bruera (Eds.), Oxford University Press, New York, 2000, 288 pages, $59.50 (hardcover), ISBN 0-19-513219-X
If the value of a freshly delivered medical text can be measured by its immediate applicability to the real-life exigencies of the clinician reader, then this reader of the latest edition of Portenoy and Bruera’s Topics in Palliative Care series gives it the highest grade. Like its predecessors, this fourth volume in the series is well organized and expansive as it explores this broad and rapidly burgeoning field by focusing on several disparate areas of palliative care with clarity and depth. The coeditors have successfully recruited a highly qualified group of guest contributors (mostly medical doctors from North America and Europe) whose writings cross professional boundaries and appeal to the many clinical and research disciplines that participate in the palliative care needs of very ill patients.
The chapters cover a diversity of subjects chosen by the editors for review in this edition, including issues of prognosis, education and training, bleeding and thrombosis, and evaluation and treatment of the commonly encountered symptoms of pain, dyspnea, and delirium. For a multiauthor text, there is a remarkable degree of cogency among chapters.
As is true for many contributions to palliative care literature, it is difficult to define a select group for whom this particular book should be specifically recommended. There is something in here for everyone who cares for patients with far-advanced disease. It deserves a place in hospital, multidisciplinary clinic, or hospice libraries as a ready reference. For those whose practices involve care of patients with cancer or other chronic progressive illnesses, subscribing to this series is a must.
Perry Fine is a professor in the department of anesthesiology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.