Clinical Surgery Pearls 2nd Edition PDF »

Preface:

The first edition of this book was published in 2010. It is gratifying to note the wide acceptance of this book as an exam cracker by undergraduates and postgraduates alike; and, therefore, I was forced to bring out the second edition within 2 years of the initial publication. I am happy to note that now this book is recommended by many universities. There is no need to stress the importance of refreshing a book like this. I was forced to spend many hours in rectifying the errors which have crept up in the first edition. The old chapters have been thoroughly revised and updated. The new American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC), 7th edition, has been used for staging and management, instead of the 6th edition of AJCC as used in the first edition. At the end of some of the important cases, colored boxes have been used under the title “What is new—For postgraduates, the unique unorthodox style, the student-oriented approach and the question-answer format are still retained.” I am grateful to Professor John S Kurian, who is Professor of Surgery at Government Medical College, Kottayam, Kerala, India, for the effort he has taken to find out the errors and for coming up with suggestions for improvement. I also thank Dr Deepak George, for his valuable suggestions for improvement of many of the chapters. I also thank the publisher M/s Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd, New Delhi, India, for bringing out a high-quality second edition book quickly. This book is the final result of my continuous teaching and learning process with my undergraduate and postgraduate students in surgery.
Whenever I interact with my students, I realize their problems and deficiencies and find out the solutions, so that it reaches them. Whenever I read a chapter, a series of questions will come to my mind and then I will try to answer those questions. That is exactly the reason why this book is in question-answer format. The flow charts and tables in this book are evolved in the classrooms and bedside teaching area. Whenever I read a topic, I try to define the condition. I feel that when you define something, half the problem is solved; and, therefore, the first chapter is devoted to definitions. There are more than 100 definitions in this book. Another important aspect of any learning process is to find out the concepts behind the disease process and management. These concepts are converted to an easily digestible capsule form in this book for the students. As an examiner at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, I realized that most of the time the students miss many important clinical points during case presentation, not because they do not know them but because they do not have a checklist. Therefore, I have given the checklist for all clinical cases.