Clinical Nutrition

Richard M. Vazquez

This book is intended as a reference text for students of the discipline of parenteral nutrition. The editors' primary objective is to enable the reader to understand the metabolic rationale and correct techniques for the provision of parenteral feeding so that the highest quality of nutritional care will be provided. This book is intended to be a basic reference for students of medicine, pharmacy, nursing, and dietetics. The chapters that address clinical topics may satisfactorily achieve this expansive goal. However, the chapters that address topics such as basic metabolism may require an additional source of information or training for some readers. There are no color illustrations or photographs, but the black-and-white illustrations and photographs are of high quality. For the most part, the legends are helpful and correlate well with the text. The reference citations are sufficient in number and up-to-date. However, these qualities vary from chapter to chapter. This is a very good single source for the diverse information that it contains. The book reads well as a reference, but its organization may frustrate some students who are studying a subject such as central venous access in its entirety; although most of the necessary information regarding the subject is provided, the reader must locate the information in at least four different chapters. One or even two chapters are sufficient to completely cover such a topic as central venous access. The numerous contributors lend to a minor lack of coordination of information, a problem not infrequently encountered with multiauthored textbooks of this size.

From The Critics

Reviewer: Heather Y. Lovelace, MSC, BHec(University of British Columbia)
Description: This is a review of the current literature on parenteral nutrition and its use in supporting patients across the lifespan (neonates to elderly patients) and under diverse conditions. The publication is timely, updating the eight-year-old second edition.
Purpose: The book is meant to provide a state-of-the-art reference for parenteral nutrition. Given the advances in knowledge of parenteral vs. enteral nutrition and their use in patient support and management, the book is a necessary addition to personal or public medical libraries. It supplements basic textbooks by providing a thorough review and synthesis of parenteral nutrition knowledge, including current literature and landmark studies.
Audience: According to the author, the knowledge in the book supports learning needs of healthcare practitioners across many fields. The multidisciplinary information provided by credible authors from many medical fields ensures that learning needs of various health practitioners are met.
Features: "Parenteral nutrition is explored, from background, access, and delivery points to formula composition and use in specific conditions, including short bowel syndrome and organ diseases. Specialty areas covered are nutrition in obesity and AIDS. Research updates on previously accepted standards and notes to indicate necessary future research are useful. The book uses well placed diagrams and study comparison tables to support recommendations for parenteral nutrition use. Sections comparing past to current recommendations could have proved a useful addition to each chapter. "
Assessment: The book provides a synthesis of current knowledge, more detailed than standard references such as Shils et al.'s Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, 9th ed. (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1999). Changes in knowledge necessitate the publication of this third edition.

3 Stars from Doody