This is the first edition of a text that is designed to be both a quick reference guide and a comprehensive resource for detailed information about all aspects of large animal veterinary medicine, in order to be useful as an educational resource for veterinary technician students and also as a practice tool for working veterinary technicians.
There are eleven chapters: Anatomy, Preventative Health Care, Nutrition, Internal Medicine, Reproduction, Nursing Care, Clinical Pathology, and Radiography of the Horse, Pharmacology, Emergency Care, and Holistic Medicine for Horses. The majority of the text is in table and chart format, with occasional short paragraphs and drawings or black and white photos. There is a color plate in the clinical pathology chapter with images of blood cells and urine elements.
I found the structure of this book to be slightly awkward at first. It is printed with a long side bind (like a traditional textbook) but with landscape orientation. This style would be more user-friendly if it had spiral rather than glue binding to allow it to lay flat when opened, which helps tremendously when using a book while working. Additionally, the page tabs give only a chapter number; if chapter names were included, then readers wouldn’t have to go back to the table of contents to find the location of desired information.
I appreciate the organization of this material; tables and charts allow not only for quick data access, but for easy comparisons between entries. For example, I can see all of the common nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs listed on the same page with their uses, contraindications, dosage rates, and routes of administration. This provides me with the information that I need about NSAIDs for large animals in a matter of minutes.
There are some topics that are not addressed at all, which surprised me after reading the authors’ description of the book in the Preface. For example, there is nothing about gastrointestinal parasites or fecal analysis, or anesthesia and surgical procedures. I know that including these subjects would add significant bulk to the text, but therein lays the challenge of providing a single book that is both a quick reference and a comprehensive resource for veterinary technicians. The canine and feline version of the Daily Reference Guide and the VSPN Notebook both get larger with each new edition, and I suspect that the Veterinary Technician’s Large Animal Daily Reference Guide will, too. This first edition is an excellent start on a massive project.
Publisher: Wiley Blackwell, 2014
ISBN 13: 9780813816210
VIN Bookstore: Currently unavailable