Park's Pediatric Cardiology for Practitioners

I have owned every edition of this amazing book. It is truly THE pediatric cardiology text for primary care practitioners who care for children. (I'm a general pediatrician.) It is thorough, well-organized, and easy to use. I heartily recommend it. I do have one minor quibble with this 5th edition. Dr. Park has removed "Part VII: Neonatal Cardiac Problems" and integrated that information into other chapters. I understand that there may be advantages to that approach. However, I'm most likely to encounter new cardiac problems in newborns and young infants rather than older children, so I found having a special section for this clinical situation useful. I miss having the information in the chapters "Special Features of the Cardiac Evaluation of Newborns" and "Manifestations of Cardiac Problems in Newborns" in one easily found section. Because there has been much progress in pediatric cardiology since the 4th edition, I certainly wanted/needed this new edition despite my minor quibble with the new organization.

Great book. Residents should use this book, if not buy it. Not terribly expensive either. Excellent. Don't like the EKG book by the same author though.

I bought this book on my 4th year medical student rotation for Pediatric Cardiology. It continues to serve me as a resident (just coming fresh off the Cardiology floor). The EKG section is invaluable. The description (and explanation of pathophysiology of) congenital heart defects is outstanding. I am told by fellows that this book has served them through the first year of fellowship then, before having to move onto more advanced texts. Only minus, no explanation of how EP studies work, which is not a huge minus because you won't be seeing much of that as a resident anyway. Bottom line: this is THE pediatric cardiology book that every pediatrician and every pediatric resident should have.

In concise and clear language, Prof. Park explains how a medical practitioner can diagnose alsmost any known cardiac anomaly in a child.Having a scientific but no medical background myself, I found it very readable. Some knowledge of cardiacanatomy and electrocardiography are a prerequisite.What is especially good is Prof. Parks comprehensiveapproach to the diagnosis: all posible pathologies arelisted and when a particular observationis possible in normal patients, he doesn't forget to pointthis out too.I have only read the 2nd edition of the book (1988), soI cannot vouch whether the latest (4th) is up to date on recent advances in the field, be it in pacemakingcapabilities or teratogenic discoveries.

As a resident in pediatrics, you face the usual time constraints, yet you want to prepare yourselfs for electives by reading a comprehensible text. For Cardiology, I have found with Park's "Pediatric Cardiology for the Practioner" an outstanding text, which I actually prefer over more recent review articles for its easy to understand approach. The text is easy to read and is supported by the style of the figures and schemes. This book provides more than an introductory text for the pediatric resident with a general focus, it also provides a valuable and readily accessible resource for cardiology fellows.