Medical Comets: Scholarly Contributions

collection of pages from lecture notes, the lab manual, and figures from Haines and Nolte. In other words, for medical students studying neuroanatomy there was no single yet comprehensive source that would address the gritty neuroanatomical details and yet present integrative cases that would illustrate the diseases such as Parkinson's in the context of a clinical setting. So when I had the chance to review Hal Blumenfeld's Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases, I realized this was the text I wished I'd had and thus cheekily regretted not having H.G. Wells' Time Machine. Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases has over 100 actual clinical cases and high-quality radiologic images, serving not only as a textbook but an atlas as well. However, if one read through the cases one at a time, it becomes clear that the amount of detail that the text explicates does not make the book's treatment suitable as a quick and tidy review source. However, if used as a means to prepare for clinical cases, Blumenfeld's masterly text, allows the students to appreciate the clinical relevance of structural details as they are being learned and to integrate knowledge of disparate functional systems, since a single lesion may affect several different neural structures and pathways. Reviewing its beautiful illustrations, I feel that this textbook is the best one on the market in allowing preclinical student to see the clinical relevance of neuroanatomy, short of seeing actual patients. In terms of layout, the text is attractively designed with a didactic use of bold facing and color to efficiently convey the most salient points. In addition, interspersed photos of the author demonstrating the neurological exam make it a rarity among textbooks. Also, its occasional mnemonic out-quotes for remembering the different sources of innervation for ten-sor tympani and the stapedius lends a student friendly feel. In terms of use of technology , an affiliated website (www.neu-roexam.com) features an outline and brief clips of the neurological exam. Although the website has gained promised function-ality, the use of Flash or some other vector based program to illustrate neurologi-cal pathways would certainly increase its didactic value. Perhaps with future editions of the text, we will see more a sophisticated use of technology to make complex neural pathways more palpable. Although I mentioned earlier that this text would have been great learning tool and reference for medical students, its friendly layout and unique approach would make it a welcome …