Original article/review
Kalra A. Reviews of educational material: Smith’s Anesthesia for Infants and Children, 10th Edition. Anesthesiology. May 2022, Volume 136 (5), p 871–872
Dr. Robert M. Smith, the former chief of anesthesia at the Boston Children’s Hospital, wrote the first edition of his essential textbook, Smith’s Anesthesia for Infants and Children, in 1959. The most recent edition, the 10th, was recently published and was reviewed by Dr. Aman Kalra, chief of pediatric anesthesiology at Tufts Medical Center in this month’s issue of Anesthesiology. At one time, Smith’s Anesthesia for Infants and Children was THE pediatric anesthesia textbook. Indeed, as a fellow in pediatric anesthesia in 1981, I devoured the 4th edition, and it and its successors were my “go-to” textbooks for many years. Today there are at least 2 competitors, both of which are very, very good: Gregory’s Pediatric Anesthesia (now in its 6th edition) and Cote, Lerman, and Anderson’s A Practice of Anesthesia for Infants and Children (now in its 6th edition, the 7th is about a year or 2 away). First full disclosure: I own and have been a writer/contributor to all 3 of these textbooks, including this 10th edition of Smith’s, and have always been impressed by their encyclopedic coverage of our specialty.
Like Dr. Kalra, I think this edition of Smith’s is terrific and should be on every pediatric anesthesiologist’s book shelf…if you have a book shelf. Part of the reason I picked this article for the PAAD is to find out if any of you still use textbooks in this day and age of the internet and the availability of instant information like PubMed, UptoDate, and yes, Ron Litman’s PAAD. Indeed, the best evidence and clinical guidance is at our fingertips even for the most complex or rare conditions. After all, given the timeline from writing to editing to publication, information in most text books is 1-2 years old at the time of publication. So, who uses textbooks anymore? Do you?
So in this very unscientific poll of our readers I’d like to know if you:
1. use textbooks?
2. If yes, which ones?
3. If yes, do you use an electronic book version or old school hard cover?
4. Do you plan on buying a new one in next 2-years?
Feel free to use open text to express your thoughts and send your responses to my email: myasterster@gmail.com I will try to post them in a week or 2.
Myron Yaster MD
PS: as a writer of book chapters in these textbooks I dread the reviews. There is always this sentence, including today’s : “Like any other reference textbook, some chapters are better written than others. With more than 150 contributing authors, this is quite inevitable” yada yada yada. My fear has always been that the reviewer would pick my chapter as an example of a bad one. Fortunately in today’s review he didn’t name me… MY