Best Book for Interventional Pain?

[Nico47]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

I just started my hardcore pain rotation here at Loyola and I'm hoping to get suggestions on what book I should be using to help master procedures.

As a PGY-3 I already have two months of pain under my belt, but these next two months are going to be intense. Basically, in less than two weeks I'll be expected to do all Facets w/MBB/TFEs with little assistance and LESIs/Caudals/SIs on my own (an attending will be immediately available if needed).

My co-residents like Fenton, but it seems pretty thin. Raj on the other hand is very thick. Is there a good in-between?

(I apologize if this has been answered before. I did a search on 'interventional' and got too many hits.)

 

[DigableCat]

Fenton is thin, but concise and reasonable to use for someone at your level.

I'm more concerned with what "immediately available" means.

Residents should be directly supervised by an attending. If not for the safety of the patient, but also for billing purposes. They really shouldn't be billing for procedures that they are not involved in, as that would/could/should constitute insurance fraud.

 

[DistantMets]

The ISIS guidelines are pretty much the standard for procedural technique. I really like Interventional Spine by Slipman et al. Raj is also good.

I agree with the OP, sounds like great hands-on, but the level of supervision seems suspect. Driving the needle safely is one thing but there are studies out there that show resident/fellows need lots of practice reading dye patterns and they miss intravascular injections. Your attending should be teaching, not using you to get all their paperwork and emails finished, or to up their billing. Besides, if your spouse/mother etc needed an epidural, would you send them to your green PGY-3 buddy doing it with no attending around? I doubt it.

 

[Nico47]

I understand the concerns. The level of independence I was describing has to do with the goals of the rotation. I'm here to learn how to do things on my own, unassisted, but I'm just a resident and there will always be someone looking over my shoulder or ready to redirect my needle.

It has been interesting as the training wheels start to fall off. Even little things like positioning and prepping take a lot more thought than I had appreciated when I was only observing.

Thanks for the book recommendations!