A first-aid manual for young medical professionals—and for more experienced ones. This is what the book ‘Farmacologia Clinica e Terapia Sistematica in Medicina Critica e d’Emergenza‘, published by Idelson Gnocchi, is about, according to UniCamillus professor Veronica Ojetti. It is a compilation of written contributions, presented in a structured, concise, and schematic manner, to provide a tool for immediate reference on the subject of pharmacology. ‘Clinical pharmacology and systematic therapy are the pillars and links between critical care medicine and emergency medicine; two separate but similar disciplines that intertwine with other specialities to ensure patient care’, we read in the introduction.
The book was edited by Dr Christian Zanza and Dr Yaroslava Longhitano, both specialists in emergency medicine and experts in toxicology and pharmacology. Professor Ojetti, lecturer in Internal Medicine on the MSc Medicine and Surgery at UniCamillus, contributed this work in the section relating to her specific area of expertise, i.e. gastroenterology, together with numerous other colleagues from several universities and institutions. She tells us how she came to be involved in this collective work:
“Christian Zanza is a colleague, a resuscitation specialist, with whom I used to work at the Gemelli hospital. He was one of my specialisation students. He had the idea of creating a tool that was easy and convenient to use, something that was much needed in the field of pharmacology. I was very happy to have the opportunity to take an active part in this work. Zanza brought together various colleagues from all over Italy as well as abroad: medical practitioners and university lecturers from many different backgrounds, each contributing their own experience and taking care of sections of the book”.
How is the book structured?
“It is divided into two parts. The first section is specifically dedicated to medicines and active ingredients, covering pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, indications of effects and dosages to be used, including for children and the elderly, interactions with other medicines—all very important information for a medical practitioner who has to administer medicines to a patient, sometimes even urgently. This section can be regarded as a supplement to the study of traditional medical textbooks, which obviously cannot provide in-depth and detailed information on every single pharmacological molecule. The second part is devoted to systematic pathologies, with indications as to which medicines can be administered for which pathology. Again, we don’t offer any in-depth explanation of a disease, but in the various sections of the book you can immediately find the answers you’re looking for. You will quickly find information on the first rapid pharmacological interventions to be carried out to deal with a given problem”.
What is the value of such a book in the age of the Internet and artificial intelligence?
“First of all, I think that seeing a book on the desk of a medical professional who can consult it in order to find the best possible answer to a patient’s needs gives a much more professional impression than seeing healthcare professionals type away on a tablet or mobile phone. Beyond this formal aspect, which I still consider very important, there are a number of practical problems that are objectively more complicated and time-consuming to solve with the Internet. When you type in a search engine, everything comes up and you try not to get lost in the vast ocean of information. Also, the most prestigious and well-known websites and portals in the field of medicine and pharmacology, where you can go without wasting your time with other entries suggested by the online search, require you to log in and register in order to have full access. Here again, there is an overwhelming amount of information to sort through. The process is therefore likely to be much more wasteful than consulting a manual that you can keep handy on your desk. In addition, we should not forget that in many hospitals or healthcare facilities, access to the Internet may be restricted for cybersecurity reasons to protect patient data. Therefore, it is not always possible for a healthcare professional to search for answers on the Internet, even if what they wish to do is consult the most authoritative sources”.
It sounds as if this book is an indispensable tool…
“This book is definitely meant to be a useful tool! It has been written on the initiative of someone who has been in the profession for many years and therefore knows what can be really useful in responding to certain critical issues that arise at work and that you only become aware of when you have first-hand experience. That’s why I say that I think this book can be very useful for young medical practitioners. I am thinking, for example, of those who have to carry out their first night watches and who may feel disoriented in certain situations. All the more so now that university degrees have become qualifying degree titles for the profession. It is one thing to study things in books—and it is important to learn and know them well—but reality has a thousand different aspects.
I think it is very important to have a handy, easy-to-use tool that can give you the answer you are looking for, in this specific case medicine to administer. It is clear that medical professionals, both experienced and newly qualified, must have a certain educational background before they use this book. It goes without saying that a disease has to be diagnosed, regardless of what is written in a manual, just as it is equally obvious that you cannot have full knowledge of the condition of each and every patient who comes to your surgery or ward”.