Kanski's Clinical Ophthalmology: A Systematic Approach - No Cost Library

Kanski's Clinical Ophthalmology: A Systematic Approach - 9th Edition

   Author(s): John Salmon, Brad Bowling  

Publisher: Elsevier, Year: 2019 

 Description: 

Kanski 's Clinical Ophthalmology has been the standard specialty textbook through eight excellent editions, providing the perfect footing for trainees in ophthalmology and a valuable reference guide for experienced practitioners. Building on Dr. Brad Bowling's previous edition, Dr. John Salmon of Oxford University has revised the textbook comprehensively. The 9th Edition retains Dr. Kanski's highly efficient format of succinct text and visually dynamic presentation, providing authoritative, focused guidance on ophthalmic disorder diagnosis and management. Extremely well structured and detailed in nature, this beautifully impressive book reflects the latest advances in the field, encouraging quick understanding to improve learning, assist in the planning of exams and direct clinical practice. This is the gold standard as a general, ophthalmic textbook. Uses targeted text, bulleted lists, tables and visual aids to highlight points of excellence across all ophthalmology subspecialties. Includes 2,600 illustrations, including more than 1,000 new images showing the exact pathology of common and rare conditions and arrows. Includes comprehensive updates on new neurological disease and ocular tumor therapy interventions; modern imaging techniques such as OCT, OCT angiography and MRI; and new topics such as circadian rhythms, graft versus host disease and the impact of Ebola virus infection on the skin. Presents exam techniques in a new, separate chapter and includes new "tips" about key issues in each chapter. Provides up-to - date information on hot topics such as intravitreal treatment with macular disease anti-VEGF agents, genetic advancements in hereditary retinal dystrophies, the use of biological agents in uveitis and scleritis care, and new surgical developments such as MIGS for glaucoma and limbal stem cell grafting. Enhanced version of the eBook included with buy. Your enhanced eBook helps you to view on a number of devices all of the book's text, statistics, and references.

Book Review:

I admit that when it comes to having new books I'm a big nerd, particularly textbooks. While I own a 7th Edition print copy, I wanted to go ahead and purchase the 8th Edition of Kanski 's Clinical Ophthalmology: A Comprehensive Approach.

The 8th edition fails to list Dr. Jack Kanski as one of the primary editors / authors; instead, the task of updating this work has fallen to one of his colleagues, Dr. Brad Bowling, who has done a superb job of maintaining the original vision of Dr. Kanski while inserting his own style to present up-to - date evidence-based information on the essential subjects of ophthalmology. During residency and through board examination, having previously depended heavily on the 7th edition, I was very keen to examination this new book, which was published earlier this year.

At first glance, it's a great update to the 7th edition's already stunning work. I don't know if it's a definite assertion, but there appears to be far more pictures and figures than previous editions. Although it may not be as groundbreaking of a change in style and feel between the 7th edition and its predecessors, the 8th edition is still a streamlined update.

Operation

The sections of the textbook are the same as for the 7th edition. The topics are arranged anatomically from anterior to posterior, as well as sections about systemic medication and ocular trauma side effects.

ORGANIZATION GROUP

As you would expect, each section typically begins with a brief overview of the anatomy, histology, physiology and other general background information before plunging into the most common pathology. Each disease has a brief introduction, section on distinguishing features / differential diagnosis / workup, and treatment. Not too dissimilar to most textbooks about ophthalmology.

What makes Kanski so invaluable are the photographs, figures and diagrams in color that rival any atlas of ophthalmology. While every key finding typically has detailed descriptors, these high-resolution images will often clarify critical concepts. Each image has a short caption which explains the image in a succinct way. Most pages have 1 to 6 images all around the text, which is an amazing reference for those visual learners.

The 8th edition contains a few more paragraphs, but before anybody panics, the book's general style remains the same-most of the bullet points remain short and sweet, while the paragraphs are still fairly succinct.

PRESENTATION STYLE

Kanski's text is classically presented in outline form with short sentence descriptors. In the 8th edition, Bowling preserved the essence of the text, but took away some of the hard-core ordering of the information. Bullet points are used more liberally, and the letter and numeric ordering (A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, etc.) has been scrapped.

Example of the 7th edition of Kanski's Clinical Ophthalmology.

Contetnts

If you're looking for in-depth explanations, plunging into the minutiae of basic ophthalmic science, this isn't your book. The text is brief in its descriptions but the content is high-yield. Its range of topics covers the essential topics in ophthalmology; its depth is sufficient for the budding ophthalmologist, or for somebody doing some moderately-intense examination.

INTRODUCTIONS DE CHAPTER

Each chapter starts out with a brief introduction to the subject. The section typically begins with anatomy, followed by physiology and histology, terminology, evaluation and interpretation techniques, and treatment basics. There is some variation in what the introduction specifically highlights, based on the nature of the subject material. Typically images in this section are of normal anatomy or histology. There are also also diagrams which explain physiology, instrument pictures and diagnostic results, or tables comparing specific clinical findings.

DESIGNS

The subjects of the illness address the basic characteristics of the disorder: epidemiology, pathogenesis / pathophysiology, clinical characteristics (symptoms / signs), differential diagnosis and workup, and treatment. There are images of all the most common diseases and most illnesses with notable appearances. There are many images of histopathology, which are often compared directly with the corresponding clinical aspect. In some cases, it includes photographs of surgical treatment.

UPDATE

There are some insets throughout the book-these glossy-colored boxes are often descriptions of surgical or clinical techniques. These are super helpful to me. When I first learned how to perform a laser trabeculoplasty, I referenced Kanski's "how to perform an ALT" step-by-step to make sure I did not forget any steps. They 're great for a quick refresher or if you're trying to find a quick guide to different procedures and techniques for the examination.

Panel TABLES

While there are not many tables, the few tables included achieve very targeted goals-comparing two similar diseases, listing features of a disease, etc. Because textbooks can overwhelm the reader with too many tables and figures that most readers are likely to gloss over, I believe the appropriate use and placement of tables can provide some relief in the midst of dense text. The Kanski text does a decent job in minimizing tables. One criticism I have of some of the tables is that some of the information presented in tabular format didn't stick out to me as very important, but maybe it might be helpful to somebody.

Photos-IMAGES

The high quality images and figures found in this textbook are very good, as I have mentioned above. Given that ophthalmology is such a highly visual discipline, having as many strong model images as possible for pattern recognition is important. Such photos will be very useful for those individuals who are analyzing photographs in preparation for the oral board test.

Notes

ORGANISMENT: 5 OUT OF 5

The book is very logically organized. Each section is well written, and the book reads (as other texts are organized) from anterior to posterior.

READABILITY: ON 4.5 Or 5

The Clinical Ophthalmology of Kanski has always been brief and till the point. This new iteration is no exception; no words are wasted. The only reason it didn't get a full 5 out of 5 was because not everybody learns well per bullet point in stylistic terms.

COMPREHENSIVES: 4 OF 5

It covers all major topics in ophthalmology. Not every aspect of ophthalmology (which makes sense in a single-volume text) is covered however. Bonus points for discussing systemic medicinal ophthalmic manifestations (which is a common screening we have to do in clinic).

CITATIONS: 0 FROM 5

The source papers are not mentioned. While the information is current and evidence-based, it does not include citations.

IMAGES: 5 OF 5 Figures

I don't think I need to say more on this.

SUITABILITY OF THE OPHTHALMOLOGIST PROPERTY: 5 OUT OF 5

For a single-volume textbook, I think Kanski's Clinical Ophthalmology satisfies the requirements for introducing someone to the field of ophthalmology: clinically-directed explanations, example images, details on the most common and essential topics in each sub-specialty, etc. As I've previously stated, I think this text is a must-have for every beginning ophthalmologist.

WRITTEN BOARD SUITABILITY REVIEW: 3.5 OUT OF 5

Kanski would be enough for some people to review the "essentials" and pass the ABO written qualifying examination. However, certain information gaps certainly remain in the text and will need supplementary material ( e.g. surgical optics). For this reason, I can not give it a rating any higher than a 3.5 as a stand-alone text.

ORAL BOARD SUITABILITY REVIEW: 4.5 OUT OF 5

Studying for the ABO oral examination has to be approached differently than for the written examination. Because the oral examination aims to test how well you can articulate a structured approach to common clinical scenarios, it 's important to have well-organized, image-filled and brief texts. While a quick review is a bit lengthy, it is still a great option to prepare for the oral exam.

PORTABILITY: 5 x 5 *

If you buy the book brand new, the 8th edition (U.S.) comes with a code that you can register with ExpertConsult.com to have unlimited online access to the text and images. There is a free app called Inkling that has partnered with Expert Consult to provide easy-to-navigate access to the book on your mobile devices. It's a great bonus feature. With that access, you can copy/download the images into educational presentations and for offline viewing. The text is fully searchable, which makes it much easier to hone in on the topics you want to learn.

The textbook itself is a fairly standard size (1.8 x 8.8 x 11 inches, 6.7 pounds), but is still bulky enough that you may not want to lug the physical book around on your clinical rotations. Although it might not be the most ideal quick-reference book in the clinic, it would be worth taking with you for more in-depth study sessions.

*The reason for the asterisk is that the book's physical portability would be rated much lower, but because there is high-quality online access for those who purchase the book new, the text can be very portable.