As surgery becomes responsive to a constricted medical curriculum, surgical educators need to rework their own approach toward teaching, so that principles are emphasized and the natural history of surgical disease is stressed. This must be done at the expense of technique and technical manipulation. Recognizing this, and realizing that conventional textbooks are too weighty, too long, too detailed for today's student, the authors of this book have attempted to present only the essentials to be included in a brief surgical curriculum.
The book has merit. It is short, devoid of illustration, and is the better for this omission. Its finest sections, including those on surgical endocrinology by Egdahl and vascular disease by Mannick, combine basic topics from subjects conventionally separated and thus provide a common background for the student. As such, these portions are a true core. In some other areas, authors have provided less depth, less integration of