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Edited by Orlando R. Hung and Michael F. Murphy
510 pp (with supplemental DVD), $129.50
New York, NY, McGraw-Hill, 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0-0714-4548-1

JAMA. 2008;300(7):850-851.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Imagine going to work every day knowing that you may have to confront a difficult airway. The airway is really just a conduit for gas exchange: oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. When airway management goes well, that too seems incredibly simple. But when it goes badly, things can become complex and daunting.

As the authors of Management of the Difficult and Failed Airway remind their readers, despite decades of study, and even with the application of multiple criteria, there is no 100% sensitive and specific way of determining ahead of time which patients will develop a failed airway—defined as 3 unsuccessful attempts at tracheal intubation, the inability to keep oxygen saturation above 90%, or both. Unlike many other puzzles and challenges in an environment of increasingly digital practice, an airway emergency does not allow the luxury of as-needed consultation of a reference book, even if such a book were on . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Bryan Maxwell, MD, MPH, Reviewer
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
San Jose, California
bmaxwell@stanford.edu

Alex Macario, MD, MBA, Reviewer
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford, California
amaca@stanford.edu

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