Media type : Text book and Text online

Synopsis: There are many ophthalmology review books in publication today. The book titled, Review of Ophthalmology-First edition , is one that many people are familiar with (published in 2005). This second edition of the book is one that many have been awaiting. There is a new ability to search through the complete text online and there is also the ability to download images from expertconsult.com , which provides much flexibility to study. Also, this edition provides a concise up-to-date review of the latest and most important research trials and medical/surgical techniques that the reader would need to know examination today.

Target Audience : Ophthalmology residents, general ophthalmologists

Review : The book title, Review of Ophthalmology, is one that resonates with being one of the most commonly used books to study for ophthalmology examinations in recent years. The first edition was published in 2005 by Friedman, Kaiser and Trattler. It provided the reader with a vast amount of information within the field of ophthalmology in a clear and concise fashion. It made it easy for the reader to remember the information most commonly tested, and highlighted every esoteric fact that was important. This is again what was expected when reading this new edition of the book. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the general structure of the book was still the same in comparison to the first edition, but it seemed to have been squared away some more. The book is still divided into 11 chapters depicting the different sections that ophthalmologists are tested on, including optics, pharmacology, embryology, neuro-ophthalmology, pediatrics/strabismus, orbit/lids/adnexa, cornea/external disease, uveitis, glaucoma, anterior segment and posterior segment. It still presents the information in a very user-friendly fashion, but there is less redundancy of information between chapters, and more tables have been added to summarize information in a lot of chapters. As expected, the book has been updated with a summary of the latest and most important research trials, and some of the latest medical and surgical treatments have been included.

What I think makes this edition even more special than the first is the incorporation of the electronic text version. When you purchase this book, it comes with instructions on how to access the book online. Being able to search through the full text from any computer or mobile device at anytime is the best thing. All that one needs to do is to log into expertconsult.com and write in the activation code and Voila! The book is at your fingertips. You can also do rapid searches on any topic while in expertconsult.com . With the first edition, you were limited to the CD that came with the book.

I do not have much to criticize about the book. The authors have done a good job of summarizing the information and making it easily available to the reader. There is still some redundancy here and there, but far less than the first edition. The information and research trials emphasized in the book are those that are commonly testable per the writers. There is always some information that will be written into tests that will not be found within this book.

This second edition of Review of Ophthalmology is certainly one of the most useful I have found. However, one must remember when utilizing this book to study, that this is not a primary text, but rather another tool to be used when doing an abbreviated review of ophthalmology. The book has compiled so much information and is geared so well at making your studying easier that you forget that point.