The Chest X-Ray: Differential Diagnosis in Conventional Radiology is an equally useful text for those starting off in the field of radiology as well as for non-radiologists who wish to review radiographic findings before the radiologist offers the final read.

The book is well formatted with explanatory text at the beginning of each chapter followed by tables and images. The tables are effectively formatted with columns devoted to disease, findings, and comments.

Unfortunately, the actual radiographs fall short. The explanations of radiographic findings are hard to follow (especially for a beginner) when matched up with images that are only two or three inches in size. Larger images would have been helpful and would have cut down on some of the unused white space.

Several simplified diagrams of normal and pathologic anatomy, such as the appearance of pulmonary vessels with increased pulmonary vascular pressures, were very useful and more of them would have been appreciated.

There are multiple spelling and/or grammatical errors throughout the text, such as a caption that reads "atrial septal defact" instead of defect. In on instance, the caption for two images at the top appears as one continuous caption while the caption for the bottom images is broken into two columns, although the text is continuous. More uniformity in the book's layout would have made sense.

Overall, The Chest X-Ray helped me improve my chest x-ray reading skills. It is also humbling to see the vast amount of information that can obtained from a simple chest x-ray.

Dr. Ford received a bachelor of science degree from Brigham Young University in Provo, UT and recently graduated from the University of Michigan School of Medicine in Ann Arbor. After his transitional year, he will continue on at the University of Michigan for a radiology residency.

The opinions expressed in this review are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AuntMinnie.com.

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