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
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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