Review

This book was published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Department of Neurosurgery of the Seoul National University College of Medicine.

A group of more than 40 editors and authors, all connected to the Seoul National University, have contributed to this work. Dr. Dong Guy Kim served as the Editor-in-Chief.

The book contains 96 chapters, each of them dealing with one particular neurosurgical topic and with the following main sections: cerebrovascular disease (20 chapters), brain tumours (20 chapters), spinal disorders (20 chapters), functional neurosurgery (16 chapters) and paediatric neurosurgery (20 chapters). As such, almost the whole field of neurosurgery is covered, except the peripheral nerves, for which only carpal tunnel syndrome is described.

Each relatively short chapter starts with the clinical description of a representative case, after which the corresponding operation is illustrated with surgical photographs and schematic drawings. Eventually a number of important practical points to be taken into account while performing the operation are highlighted.

With their work the authors seem to focus on readers who are primarily residents, fellows and neurosurgeons with little experience.

While leafing through the book and starting to read the chapters, one gets a first impression of disappointment. Indeed, because of the great number of topics, only a short text and a limited—at first sight too limited—number of figures are offered for each individual case.

However, there is one major difference with a classical textbook or atlas. Together with the book, two DVDs are offered, constituting an essential part of the work. The DVDs contain videos of all the operations that are described in the book. Each video is of sufficient, most of the times even excellent quality and includes the important steps of the operation. The text and figures serve as an immediate explanation for what is shown in the video: from this perspective, the text is not too short, nor are the figures too limited in number.

Considering what is available nowadays as practical study material about neurosurgical procedures, either one reads textbooks and atlases or one looks at videos. What is offered here is different: the combination of a typical clinical case report, video of the operation, photographs and drawings explaining what just has been seen, as well as descriptions of a number of practical points while performing the operation, is unique. It is as if one is live in the operating room, looking at the operation and simultaneously getting the necessary comments by the surgeon.

Taking into account the quality of this video-book, it can recommended not only for each resident or young neurosurgeon, but also for practicing surgeons, for whom it is always interesting to see how other experienced surgeons use tricks and solve practical issues.