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This book is a practical reference that covers a broad range of subject matter. A vast amount of information relevant to critical care nursing is reviewed and condensed into a compact and lightweight form.

The book begins with an overview of patient assessment and is followed by a number of minor chapters that briefly acquaint the reader with content that is normally reserved for larger, more comprehensive texts. Information explored includes; acute pain, psychosocial concerns, monitoring, palliative care, pharmacology, complementary therapies and care of the critically ill child in an adult ICU. Important and significant content has not been neglected despite the book being in a pocket sized format.

The majority of the reference manual is dedicated to describing the critically ill adult patient and treatment modalities. This information is then organised into a systems based approach ensuring a logical sequence to the content. However, rapid navigation of the information is impeded by the changing position of each new subject heading on the page. Occasional pictures and numerous charts supplement the written medium. The subtitle ‘clinical brief’ follows each main heading and provides a helpful concise overview of the subject.

The book follows a nursing diagnosis format, an approach that has never been widely embraced in the Australian nursing context. The arrangement of information into this format results in the fragmented presentation of patient management details. Unfortunately this leaves the reader disentangling multiple pieces of information and having to link them back together.

A wide range of topics are discussed in the book, but the content is brief and restricted in coverage, as is expected in a pocket sized, quick reference guide. As this is a North American text, many of the drug names and some pathology references are not consistent with Australian terminology and references. The appendices offer additional information but this is unlikely to be resourced regularly.

The book is aimed at experienced and novice critical care nurses, however, the novice critical care nurse would be most likely to reap the greatest benefit from this book's overview methodology.