The 12th edition of the ‘Bible of Urology’ was a pleasure to review. The title has been changed to Campbell-Walsh-Wein Urology to honour Dr Alan Wein’s many years of dedicated chief editorship of this famous textbook. The current editor-in-chief, Alan W Partin is supported by an editorial team comprising Roger Dmochowski, Louis Kavoussi and Craig Peters who are renowned experts in their areas.
They have outlined many of the changes to the new edition in the preface, where they state their dedication to “keeping the content of this textbook fresh and on the cutting edge of care”. Indeed, there have been 10 new chapters added with more than 150 new authors from all over the world. This encyclopaedic text is presented in three volumes (condensed down from the four volumes of the previous edition) and has 3706 pages and more than 3000 illustrations laid out in 162 chapters. This is the go-to reference book in urology and consequently is obviously not designed to be picked up and read cover to cover (I haven’t met anyone who has achieved this as yet!) but each chapter has been set out in a reader-friendly format with many colour photographs, line diagrams, comparison tables and ‘key points’.
There are several new chapters in this edition which include ones on basic principles of nuclear medicine, ethics and informed consent, incisions and access, complications of urologic surgery, urologic considerations in pregnancy, an interesting one on intraoperative consultation when dealing with unpredictable situations, urologic considerations in transgender individuals, and others. The topical progression from chapter to chapter is well thought out and logical.
As we all know, a drawback of comprehensive textbooks is that they become out of date very soon because of the inherent nature of fast-paced development of urological knowledge. Yet, every chapter that I looked at had been updated with new content, recent advances, updated references and good coverage of recent changes and current controversies.
Although some trainees find it daunting to delve into this vast text when preparing for exams, I would recommend it: purchasing the book gives access to an ‘Expert Consult eBook’ which provides searchable online content, downloadable figures, and over 150 surgical video clips. The accompanying Review (sold separately) contains multiple choice questions with detailed answers which I, now many years ago, found very useful when preparing for my FRCS (Urol). No other textbook of urology comes close to the high standards, depth and scope of this flagship of urological information and education.
