TOBI’S QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS IN ANAESTHESIA AND INTENSIVE CARE: INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Anaesthesiology is a science vaguely understood as the administration of sedatives that limits sensitivity to pain. However, this knowledge domain encompasses more than the mastery of consciousness. Accurately put, anaesthesiology is a domain widely defined as a specialty that is concerned with the total perioperative care of a patient before, during and after surgery.
In a tribute to the field, many medical authors have written about the science of anaesthesiology, but few have focused on students and how they should approach the assessments that determine their success. Despite the latter, Dr Kingsley Tobi, the author of Tobi’s questions and answers in anaesthesia and intensive care is one of the few authors who provide students with focused learning material that help them to answer examination questions in the best possible manner.
Dr Tobi, who is a specialist in Anaesthesiology and Intensive care and a Senior lecturer at the University of Namibia School of Medicine, explains that the book does not spoon-feed students with the right answers. “Contrary to what some people may think, the book does not provide students with the answers beforehand, it simply gives them an idea of what the examiner expects when assessing their answers. “This is mainly because students don’t fail because they don’t have the knowledge, they fail because they don’t know how to deploy the knowledge they have”, explained Dr Tobi.
Since the first edition published in 2011, the book has travelled far and wide, helping undergraduate and postgraduate students in Nigeria, Rwanda and across Southern Africa.
Attesting to the usefulness of the book, a fourth-year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery student, Wickus Grobler said that the book provides lots of content that are not easy to find. “What I found very handy about the book, is that it contains snippets of information that you really have to dig for in other books. The book is nice and condense, it is everything in one book and makes it really easy to remember information”. He further mentioned that the questions in the book are questions you would normally get from consultants and questions that you ask yourself from time to time, emphasized Grobler, in relief of the assistance the book provides.
After a successful run of the first edition, Dr Tobi published the second edition in 2018 following the fraternity’s development in Africa and his exposure to this specialty across Southern Africa. The second edition contains questions sourced from both international and local examination bodies in Nigeria, Rwanda and Europe which gives the book some international flair.
Both editions have received credence from esteemed anaesthesiology colleges and societies and, positive acknowledgement from seasoned examiners such as Prof Charles O Imarengiaye, who wrote the foreword for the first edition, followed by Prof Obashina Ogunbiyi’s striking articulation of the usefulness of this examination guide in the second edition.
Although this book has assisted numerous anesthesiologists along their journey to becoming specialists, the book is far from paying its due.
Dr Tobi questions and answers in anaesthesia and intensive care, is gearing up for the third edition that focuses on single best choice questions. The book is based on multiple choice questions and provides explanatory notes so students can understand the answer. The book is dated to be published towards the end of 2021.
