Yearbook of Surgery 1998

Yearbook of Surgery 1998. Editor-in-Chief: Edward M. Copeland III. 533 pp. Illust. Mosby Inc., St. Louis; Harcourt Brace & Co. Canada, Ltd., Toronto. 1998. Can$111. ISBN 0-8151-9743-8

“I used to!” This was the common response to my informal poll of a number of surgical colleagues whom I questioned as to whether they get and read the Yearbook series. This series has been in existence since 1901, and each title clearly states its purpose and intent. Currently, 40 yearbooks are published annually, 9 of them on surgical topics, including vascular, thoracic and plastic surgery and surgical oncology.

The Yearbook of Surgery 1998 covers 14 surgical and surgically related topics, ranging from critical care and burns to noncardiac thoracic surgery. The editor-in-chief and 13 other editors, all US surgeons, have been provided with the mandate of reviewing 86 selected surgical journals published in 1998 and of selecting from these journals abstracts that they believe will be of particular interest to surgeons.

Each chapter begins with over a page of editorial comment and general overview, followed by the abstract, with about half a page devoted to comment on the worth of the paper. In my area of oncology, the chapter was well divided into 12 papers on the breast, 9 papers on colorectal cancer, 4 on liver cancer, 2 on pancreatic cancer, 3 on stomach cancer, 3 on melanoma and 1 on sarcoma. Most of these papers I had seen or read during the year in the original journal. However, I wonder how many practising Canadian surgeons will be interested in the 18 or so critical care articles highlighted. Certainly 4 caught my attention, including a paper on ventilating the severely compromised patient for periods in the prone position. However, the ventilatory performance of baboons did seem somewhat esoteric to me!

I believe there are a number of strategies that the publisher and editors could adopt to make this classic series once again a “must have.” First, I would recognize that general sur gery is a specialty in its own right and that the chapters need a clear general surgical focus. For example, there should be chapters devoted to laparoscopic surgery, trauma, head and neck surgery and endocrine surgery. A single additional chapter should cover key papers on critical care, surgical nutrition and transplantation that the general surgeon might have missed in subspecialty journals. Next, recognizing the importance of evidence-based medicine, the editors should provide opinion as to the level of evidence each paper provides, where data are randomized, what is the likelihood of beta error, sample size problems, the likelihood of selection and referral bias, and how generalizable to the average surgeon’s practice is the information provided.

In summary, this book is excellent in concept, but without some refocussing will likely remain in hospital and university libraries rather than in the hands of general surgeons.