This is an update of the Second Edition published in 2018 and it was a great help in this review to read the Preface. This, for once, specifies the target audience (ENT trainees and general practitioners) and tells us what is new in this update. The 14 authors of the 32 chapters have added to indications for surgery, patient assessment and surgical techniques. Where references are supplied there seems nothing post 2018, but this did not detract from the quality of the text.
What we do get is two new chapters, one from each of the two editors. James Tysome has included a chapter on implantation for hearing loss. This has particularly nice line diagrams and, throughout the book, these are a strong feature, especially in anatomy and epistaxis management. Rahul Kanegaonkar has produced a thoughtful chapter on Vertigo and Dizziness, which has a useful message for advanced trainees also. It is refreshing to see Meniere’s Disease described as ‘very uncommon’. I digress, but often recall my trainer John Graham saying ‘Diagnosing Meniere’s Disease is easy. Some people do it all the time’. The chapter comes with a flowchart filling an entire page, which will challenge many a reader, but it is good to see that the history taking is seen as fundamental. I liked to see it described as ‘may be of little diagnostic value’ but could well be ‘the first time that anyone has listened’. Who would have thought of spontaneous miscarriage as a significant previous medical history in the context?
The chapters are short but ‘punchy’ and this is a book that can be read from cover to cover with little effort. The topics are ideally suited to the early years trainee in our discipline, in what is already a well-established standard text. Finally, I was amused to read that the second author is now a Professor. His father was my senior registrar many a year ago and I often heard of little Rahul, who was just learning to walk. Next time we met was across the FRCS (ENT) viva table. James and Rahul have done well here, even if I am a bit biased.
