This cookbook-like guide for junior neurosurgical residents describes exercises for learning basic operative skills.

It is well organized, well written, easy to read and clear.

In 60 pages, this paperback provides motivation, explanations and demonstrations in six chapters entitled: Planning a Procedure; The Craniotomy, trained on a coconut; Working with the Microscope; Subpial Resection; Removing an Artificial Brain Tumor and Microsurgical Training, trained with microsutures on a chicken wing.

Photographs and a schematic drawing clearly illustrate the equipment required and operative steps.

Every step of these exercises makes sense and represents a tool for successful neurosurgery. The additional structure of the chapters includes Relevance, Objective, You Need and The Exercise and is completed with References and/or Recommended readings, which adds additional clarity.

The access to instructional videos of the different procedures is nice but not necessary. As a suggestion, the quality of the videos could be improved for more esthetic and precise viewing. The illustration on the cover is not easily understood.

Taken together, this book accomplishes its original aims, meets its title description and fills a gap for its intended readership, neurosurgery interns and residents who want to cover the period before beginning their surgical education with patients.