Richard W Dehn and David P Asprey. Published by Saunders (Elsevier), 2007. ISBN 9781416030010. Contains 592 pages. AUD$99.00

This is a “how to do it” book of some common clinical procedures. It is written mostly by physician assistants, with that audience in mind but is just as applicable to doctors, nurses, and any other health professionals who undertake clinical procedures.

Each chapter is devoted to a particular skill and each contains useful revision of the relevant anatomy, physiology as well as listing the indications, contraindications, instructions for follow-up, and suggestions for further reading. Each procedure chapter covers the relevant preparation, equipment, useful diagrams, and step-by-step instructions.

The only idiosyncratic part is what was included and what was excluded as an “essential clinical procedure.” The expected skills such as venepuncture, arterial puncture, lumbar puncture, and nasogastric tube insertion etc are there. There are also chapters on treating ingrown toenails, sigmoidoscopy, removal of ear wax, and draining abscesses. A nice inclusion is an outline for obtaining informed consent and sterile technique.

Some of the oddities that have also been included though are examination of male genitalia, measurement of blood pressure, and examination of the foot in someone with diabetes (all of which I would regard as clinical examination skills rather than procedural skills). Also included are outpatient coding and giving bad news. All these sections are still useful but it wasn’t quite clear why they were included and other aspects of physical examination or patient communication were excluded. Knee aspiration was the only joint included.

It is very clearly written and nicely laid out. It’s the sort of book that is nice to have handy when faced with needing to undertake a procedure and needing to remind oneself of the relevant information. It would also be very useful as an accompaniment to formal clinical skills teaching sessions. As such it would be good to have in any clinical skills laboratory.