After reading this book, one has many more questions than answers regarding risk and outcome in anesthesia. Risk and patient safety in the perioperative period are addressed through specific critical questions, which provide fertile areas for research by the current and next generations of anesthesiologists.
There are 27 contributors to this for the most part well-written and well-or-ganized text. The first six chapters describe perianesthetic and perioperative risk system by system, eg, cardiovascular, pulmonary, endocrine, gastrointestinal, psychiatric, and hematologic. The final nine chapters relate to subspecialty areas such as critical care and pain, as well as a lucid description of the medicolegal aspects of anesthesia practice useful for practitioners at any stage in their careers. The bibliographies following each chapter are comprehensive and up-to-date.
Many of the discussions and therefore conclusions are hampered by a paucity of objective outcome data. This stimulates the reader to reexamine rigid approaches to many