This 361-page manual, laid out in 5 chapters, has been written by cardiologists from the Hospital Meixoeiro de Vigo and essentially covers the following topics: a) acute cardiovascular diseases; b) nursing care during hospitalization; c) role of nursing in interventional cardiology and electrophysiology departments; d) nursing in noninvasive centers; and e) nursing and health education.
This update on current cardiology practice discusses traditional topics such as patient care in relation to cardiac arrest and sudden death, chest pain and acute coronary syndromes, arrhythmias, syncope, acute aortic syndrome, valve disease, pre-procedure, and post-procedure care, postoperative care of cardiac surgery, renal complications in cardiologic patients, etc.
The medical and nursing practice approach taken in each chapter and section is the result of cooperative efforts between expert cardiology nurses, cardiologists, and cardiology residents.
The chapters are written plainly and without undue rhetoric, offering an extremely practical look at each topic and providing numerous clear, well chosen illustrations. The typography used to print the manual makes for easy browsing and reading, and the diagrams and tables are an exceptional educational tool that simplifies the reading and understanding of each subject, although some tables could have been printed in a larger font. Literature references are cited throughout the text with up-to-date, carefully selected quotes, and there are numerous contributions by Spanish authors to the various topics. The manual is comfortable to handle and peruse, making it an easy, convenient tool.
This is unquestionably a great book on cardiology for nurses, being both current, complete and based on daily practice. We highly recommend it as a basic tool that should be mandatory in the libraries of our coronary and cardiology care departments. Moreover, this new publication has the added value of accurately describing the daily health care activities of cardiology nurses in a tertiary cardiology center, based on modern scientific and technical knowledge in this field.
We would like to congratulate all the authors for this excellent initiative, which will be extremely useful from the educational and training viewpoint for health professionals, in particular, for cardiology nursing staff.