Authoritative, illuminating, and calming health care advice.
A debut manual offers a behind-the-scenes look at hospital emergency departments.
The emergency department of a hospital can be a covert, intimidating place. The aim of this guide written by Voon, a physician trained in emergency medicine, is to demystify the ED. While the author’s slant is specific to Canadian hospitals, this book is likely to be helpful to patients wondering about any ED’s inner workings. Voon very effectively parts the curtains, beginning with an overview of how the ED functions, from triage and registration through medical assessments and treatment. Some of the more informative details in Part 1 are found in the sidebars; they cover myths (for example, being brought to the ED by ambulance does not mean a patient is seen faster), what the numbers on a monitor mean, common medical tests, and more. Part 2 acknowledges arguably the biggest downside of EDs—the wait. Here, Voon empathetically explains some of the reasons there is typically such a long wait, the most critical being the “worst first” strategy: “The main goal of the ED staff is to check for, rule out, and treat potentially life and limb-threatening conditions first.” He also suggests three techniques to reduce anxiety while waiting. In Part 3, the author delivers insights into ED physicians by discussing why they enjoy their jobs. In addition, he provides descriptions of the roles of the staff as well as the basic layout of an ED. All of this detail serves to allay fears of the unknown. Part 4 may be of the most immediate value because Voon shares his assessment of certain serious symptoms and “what we worry about” in the ED. Included in this section is the author’s sensible advice on less acute symptoms and what they might mean, a fairly comprehensive list of over-the-counter medications everyone should have at home, and helpful tips for common conditions. Budding medical practitioners may be especially intrigued by the “maneuvers that are as easy as party tricks to try for problems that sometimes bring people to the ED.” The writing is down-to-earth and the content practical.
Authoritative, illuminating, and calming health care advice.Pub Date: June 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77-760341-0
Page Count: 162
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.
The acclaimed director displays his talents as a film critic.
Tarantino’s collection of essays about the important movies of his formative years is packed with everything needed for a powerful review: facts about the work, context about the creative decisions, and whether or not it was successful. The Oscar-winning director of classic films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs offers plenty of attitude with his thoughts on movies ranging from Animal House to Bullitt to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Big Chill. Whether you agree with his assessments or not, he provides the original reporting and insights only a veteran director would notice, and his engaging style makes it impossible to leave an essay without learning something. The concepts he smashes together in two sentences about Taxi Driver would take a semester of film theory class to unpack. Taxi Driver isn’t a “paraphrased remake” of The Searchers like Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? is a paraphrased remake of Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby or De Palma’s Dressed To Kill is a paraphrased remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. But it’s about as close as you can get to a paraphrased remake without actually being one. Robert De Niro’s taxi driving protagonist Travis Bickle is John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Like any good critic, Tarantino reveals bits of himself as he discusses the films that are important to him, recalling where he was when he first saw them and what the crowd was like. Perhaps not surprisingly, the author was raised by movie-loving parents who took him along to watch whatever they were watching, even if it included violent or sexual imagery. At the age of 8, he had seen the very adult MASH three times. Suddenly the dark humor of Kill Bill makes much more sense. With this collection, Tarantino offers well-researched love letters to his favorite movies of one of Hollywood’s most ambitious eras.
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311258-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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