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Hamberger, L.K., Burge, S.K., Graham, A.V., & Costa, A.J. (1997). Violence issues for health care educators and providers. New York: Hawthorn.

This book consists of seventeen chapters arranged under seven section headings, with a forward written by Robert Geffner, the senior editor of the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma. This book has been co-published simultaneously as volume 1(2) 1997 of the above noted journal. The authors are physicians, social workers and psychologists working in academic and private practice settings. The overall intent of this collection of articles is to provide materials on violence intervention and training for health care educators and health care providers.

The introductory section of the book discusses the importance of developing violence education curricula for those who educate health care providers and the providers themselves. Victor La Cerva defines violence from a public health perspective and offers recommendations for developing a curriculum on violence prevention.

Section two entitled, The Community Context for Teaching, includes a paper by Nancy Baker and Christopher Reif who discuss a Community Oriented Primary Care methodology which they feel can assist Family Practice faculty in implementing clinical and teaching activities designed to address interpersonal violence against women. The key element in this model is the involvment of the expertise of community agencies in a way that is mutually beneficial.

In section three on Community Prevention, an interesting evaluation of a school based primary violence prevention programme shows the role that family practice physicians can have in community based violence prevention.

Section four focuses on Educational Methods and Issues. Richard Birrer, et.al., discuss an attempt to incorporate a curriculum on domesttic violence in a residency program. The authors note that violence is not part of curricular issues in most medical residency training programmes in the United States. This is also probably true in Canada. As they discuss the delivery of the curriculum on domestic violence, they highlight the goals and objectives of such a program. They report that after workshops had been delivered, an evaluation of the knowledge level of the participants on issues of domestic violence was administered. The results of this survey were dis-heartening as the authors confirm previous findings that residents in training and faculty had limited knowledge and understanding of domestic violence.

The issues of spanking and corporal punishment is under constant debate in Canada and the United States. We all as parents have struggled with issues of discipline and read numerous books and articles on this issue. In section five of this book which focuses on Violence Education with Specific Groups, a thoughtful paper by Nadine Block and Kenelm McCormick discusses non violent child hood discipline. The authors point out the sober fact that interpersonal violence is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. Parents they state, "normalize and validate violence when they use corporal punishment." The authors provide a discussion of educational strategies for physicians and others to learn about childhood discipline and how to counsel parents on non-violent disciplinary practices.

This section of the book also includes a useful paper by Anthony Costa and Georgia Anetzberger on elder abuse which defines the different forms of abuse. They also presented diagnostic and educational strategies for students who may be studying in Social Work, Medicine, Nursing or Psychology. Over the past few years, concern has been raised about the special health care concerns of refugees and victims of torture. There are community advocates and some professional health care providers in Vancouver who spend much time addressing these issues. The paper by Allison Clough included in this section discuses the health care needs of the refugee population and how these needs have been served in Tucson, Arizona by a clinic staffed with students at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Also detailed is the learning experience of students working in this program.

The final section of this book includes two articles related to abuse involving professionals. Sheila Dunn and Risa Freeman describe a curriculum which teaches about sexual abuse of patients by physicians. Sheri Wahlen describes working with trainees and learners on issues of secondary victimization that can come from intense exposure to issues of violence during violence education activities. Other useful papers deal with issues of firearm violence, the duty to report, and other issues of violence.

From a community perspective this is a useful addition to the literature on family violence. This book written by health care professionals is dedicated to teaching health care providers to recognize family violence as a major health care issues. There is information that health care educators may find useful in their work. Just as important is the theme running through this book, which suggests that health care professionals can not work in isolation, but need to take an active and collaborative role with community based victim serving agencies to address these issues.

Jill Hightower