"Essential Procedures in Pediatrics" Author:Baldev Prajapati, Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers Ltd., Delhi, 1st Edition, 2003, pp320, Price Rs. 250.

A very exhaustive and well researched book on pediatric procedures. The author has written the book with the aim to teach "... the skills of various procedures particularly for those who are dealing with very sick children..." after reviewing over 1500 publications. Utilizing the experience and a feedback from the pre-conference Workshop on Pediatric procedures the idea of the book seems to have travelled a long journey to its present form.

It is a very large volume, which contains details of all the commonly done procedures in a pediatric hospital including some of those which are usually in the domain of a super- specialist e.g., intrauterine transfusion. The author has put in historical and introductory details along with detailed bibliography for the discerning reader making it a good book as a detailed reference for somebody wanting to know all about a procedure. But one would usually expect such a text to be a concise bedside companion as an easy to carry text, which can fit into a coat’s pocket. I feel it is the extra flab that makes this book cumbersome to carry and important points get lost in a large flow of information. The book needs to remove large details of "why" and instead focus on " how to " and" how not to" do a procedure.

The author claims to have maintained "... clarity of thoughts, simple language and problem oriented approach.." in the book. However in some places the language is far from simple and the sentences have a poor convoluted syntax. The book scores miserably with regards to the figures as the illustrations are often disproportionate, (e.g., scalp vein needle) or are incorrect (e.g., nebulising chamber). The book is desperately in need of a professional editor so that not only the extra flab is cut but also the formatting of paragraphs as well as the headings is done more systematically. For instance under the heading antiseptic solutions one gets details of antiseptics, scrubbing solutions as well as the hospital disinfectants, all jumbled up.

Varinder Singh,
Associate Professor,
Department of Pediatrics,
Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital,
New Delhi 110 001, India.