Hard to master even for those who have studied it for years, the human brain stem is a fascination and a consternation-fascinating in its complexity and disconcerting to the beginner for precisely the same reason. Intended for medical or neuroscience students, Learning the Brainstem adopts an approach that the author has cultivated over twenty-five years of classroom and hospital teaching. His goal is to arrive at knowledge like that of a local based on a carefully narrated tour of axial sections of anatomy. Along the way, he also examines relevant clinical data in all their subtlety at the bedsides of patients.