I'd recommend this to anyone new to working as an assistant or in tech school. It's the only resource I've seen that clearly identifies (includes crisp, close-up photos for every item) and clearly explains what tons of veterinary instruments & other tools are for.* It is EXACT. At our clinic we all had trouble identifying the exact difference between brown adson, plain adson, blah blah forceps and though we looked online, in instrument catalogs, etc.--this is the only place I found definitive answers.* I love that there is a description of what each item is actually used for. It adds another layer of understanding of my job and helps me select the right tool for a given task. Also helps me anticipate what tools the doctor is going to need whether he's removing a small mass from an eyelid or spreading someone's ribs open.* It is useful in learning the items you don't use often enough to know. We have any number of old weird-looking tools in our clinic left by the previous owner that we use on rare occasions but it's hard to know what half of them are called, let alone what they're for. Now when the doctor calls for something obscure I might actually be able to go get it!*It exposes you to tools outside your immediate area of practice--if you mostly know small animal stuff this book shows you food animal and equine tools so you have a clue. Horn gouge, teat dilator, radiographic hoof positioner, you name it. I even learned that the old shepherd's crook you see in cartoons is a real tool "to separate and capture sheep"--and, in a very rudimentary way, how it works.*Some of the tools seem too basic to bother including, but I've learned a little new info even on some of those. For example, I didn't know there's a special kind of nail clipper for those overgrown curlicue toenails that are so hard to cut--and we even have it in our clinic, but didn't know what it was.*It's organized in 23 chapters by logical categories such as instruments for administering medicine, dental instruments, orthopedic instruments, instruments used for hoof care, instruments for animal identification, and instruments used for pigs, sheep, and goats.* It includes a comprehensive index so you can search for a tool by name.* It includes a section on proper care of surgical instruments.* I love the format--spiral bound with index-card size pages, and the cover even has a fold-over flap to help protect the pages.Bottom line--really useful book idea, well-executed!