Médecine de Catastrophe

The subject is divided into anatomical regions and each region is divided into trauma and non-trauma, which is helpful. Naturally, not all topics can be covered in one book and sometimes the choice of topics is a little bizarre. Nobody can attempt chest radiology in 40 pages and the authors state this in the preface. As a Radiologist, I find it a book for and by clinicians and it has very much the feel of picture matching-but we all do this in difficult situations. The classical trauma sections will appeal to the radiologists more than the chest and abdominal sections. The casualty officer will find the tables of imaging techniques useful but it would have been helpful if some guidance had been given about the feasibility of different views on ill patients. Much trauma is initially investigated in the on-call situation when both medical or radiographic staff are relatively junior. All in all, this book attempts an impossibly large subject and can't cover it adequately all the time. Nevertheless, it will have a place on the desk in the casualty department and, by radiological book standards, it is quite cheap.