Current Occupational & Environmental Medicine

From The Critics

Reviewer: J. Thomas Pierce, MBBS PhD(Navy Environmental Health Center)
Description: Now in its third edition, this book provides a complete guide to common occupational injuries and occupational and environmental illnesses. It speaks to diagnosis and treatment as well as to preventive and remedial measures necessary in the workplace and associated community.
Purpose: This edition continues to provide detailed coverage of diagnosis and treatment of a broad spectrum of occupational injuries and occupational and environmental illnesses. Like other volumes in the Lange series, this book is intended to be practical, concise, and timely in terms of core issues and key subspecialties, including ergonomics, clinical toxicology, and industrial hygiene.
Audience: This book's appeal is to a broad range of professionals, certainly including occupational and environmental medicine physicians. Its dual goals of being concise, yet comprehensive, will likely recommend it to primary care physicians and consultants such as those in fields such as toxicology and industrial epidemiology.
Features: The book is organized into six sections and an appendix which introduces biostatistical and epidemiologic problems. The six sections include those defining occupational medicine practice, treatment of common occupational injuries, clinical toxicology including many significant toxicants, the responsibilities of allied health professionals and a discussion of medical social issues. The book is contemporaneous in terms of its use of current Web resources and data from clinical immunology and toxicology. The editor deftly introduces the reader to essential subtleties associated with occupational and environmental medicine.
Assessment: Given the seven-year gap since the second edition, this 2004 edition allows inclusion of new methods of disability management and a lively discussion on chemical and radiation terrorism. I particularly liked the chapters treating female and male reproductive toxicology where multiple authors shared roles. The appendix on biostatistics and epidemiology is not to be overlooked as it provides occupational medicine-specific examples. The index is extremely detailed and useful when using a 900-page book. Given the breadth of the applicable occupational and environmental medicine disciplines, this third edition will be extensively referenced by occupational health physicians and likely used by primary care providers as well.

4 Stars! from Doody