Reviews by Mike Whooley, EMT-P

When I was a young EMT, Mosby's The Basic Provider, Assisting with Advanced Life Support Skills would have provided me a sound basic introduction to the world of advanced life support and flattened my learning curve dramatically.

The 174-page book (including index) is divided into eight chapters, the first being a good review of respiratory and cardiovascular anatomy. The rest cover procedures, with clear objectives at the beginning of each chapter and short case studies illustrating the procedures. A CD-ROM, located in the back of the book, provides video to accompany many of the procedures.

Chapter 8, "Putting It All Together," provides 10 case studies that allow EMTs to integrate the preceding material.

Altogether an excellent book, and one I would highly recommend to any EMT as an introduction to ALS.

The Basic Provider, Assisting with Advanced Life Support Skills by Orlando J. Dominguez, BS, EMT-P, & John R. McPherson, MD, FACEP. Mosby Inc., 2004; ISBN 0-323-02231-6, $29.95.

Let me start off by saying that I love Barbara Aehlert's work. I've used her bound materials as an adjunct to ACLS and PALS classes for years, and her ECG book is an excellent overview, especially for new practitioners.

So when PDA-challenged Norm handed me the Rapid ACLS handheld software, I naturally seized upon it as an excellent way to revive my flagging memory at 3 a.m. And once I got it loaded onto my PDA, a Palm 500, it lived up to all my expectations.

But, therein lies the rub: This Ebook was truly a pain in the nether regions to load. It took three tries and over two hours to load a program that is less than 5 MBs in size. My only suggestion is to read the instructions carefully. Once you achieve your goal, you'll find that it was really worth it. This is truly an invaluable resource. All the information you will find in the hard-bound edition of the text is present, along with hundreds of drug monographs, multiple calculators for fluid replacement, metric/imperial conversions, IV infusion rates, etc. The algorithms are easy to read, and the various procedures are well-illustrated. If you are considering purchasing a PDA, this is a time when a color screen would come in handy. This is a Windows-only program requiring at least Windows 95, Internet connection (at least Internet Explorer 5.0) and the appropriate desktop interface program for your PDA. This program is 4.5 MBs on your PDA.

Rapid ACLS handheld software by Barbara Aehlert, RN. Mosby Inc., 2003, $24.95.