Practical and Viva in Pediatrics Balaram Chaudhary and Varsha Chaudhary Paras Medical Publisher: Hyderabad Pages: 315, Price: Rs. 275.00

It is a well written and thought provoking literary work that particularly highlights the non-sexual transmission of HIV exspecially through injections, blood tests, dental and operative procedures and even cosmetic services such as tattooing, shaving, piercing and pedicures!!

The book is well divided into 4 chapters with chapter one covering history and statistics of HIV transmission and spread of the epidemic. Chapter 2 covers the already known risk factors for HIV transmission and transmission rate of each risk factor. Chapter 3 remains the main highlight of the book and covers various other means of transmission and how to prevent with safe practices. Practices such as skin piercing procedures, injection sterilization practices, dental care, blood transfusion safety, tattooing are especially well covered.

This book, on the whole, dispels lots of myths related to HIV and at the same time highlights the need to emphasize on non-sexual transmission of HIV, which also needs to be tackled to overcome this epidemic.

Ira Shah

Neonatal and Pediatric Respiratory Diseases Praveen Khilnani IK International Publishing House Pvt Ltd, New Delhi; Pages: 717, Price: Rs. 2495.00

This multi-authored book is intended as a basic and current resource for pediatric residents and pediatricians. The book covers a wide range of problems from the common congenital and acquired pediatric respiratory problems to some not so commonly seen conditions. The chapter on tuberculosis covers the current regimens but could have been useful for readers if it had incorporated the IAP consensus guidelines on diagnosis of childhood tuberculosis. The focus of Asthma is only on acute severe asthma and leaves out the management of the more common persistent asthmatic subjects. The book has some useful practical sections on diagnostic pulmonary testing and procedures commonly used in children (such as chest tube placement, tracheostomy) for respiratory care. The book has a bias towards acute and critical care (probably reflects the editor’s specialty bias). The book is easy to read due to the large font size with several tables and diagrams. Addition of treatment flow diagrams could have made it a more clinician friendly companion. It is a worthy attempt at providing information on pediatric respiratory disorders in the Indian context.

Clinical Pediatrics for Undergraduates KE Elizabeth Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd, New Delhi; Pages: 348, Price: Rs.295.00

This book addresses precisely what its name suggests – Clinical Pediatrics. Thoughtfully, it begins with the syllabus. It then starts with history taking, clinical examination and goes on to cover various subjects viz. general pediatrics, community pediatrics, social pediatrics, neonatology and then the various systems. It further proceeds to cover, with clarity, pediatric emergencies, instruments and procedures, drugs and doses and provides practical tips e.g. on how to provide fluid therapy etc. The chapter on viva, X-rays and objective structured clinical examination may well be of use not only to the students of Pediatrics but even those who conduct examinations.

The content is thorough, the language is simple, the print is good and illustrations very appropriate. Yet another good book from Elizabeth. Wonder how many different ways by which an author can look at a subject.

Recommended not only for undergraduates, but for all students of Pediatrics.