Search

Now fully revised and updated with the latest guidelines, this new edition of the Oxford Handbook of Paediatrics is a compact guide to all aspects of acute and chronic paediatrics. The handbook's team of specialist contributors and editors have successfully condensed many years of clinical experience into a pocket-sized compendium of clinical problems and treatment options. Taking a child-centred approach to the subject, the authors have provided comprehensive coverage of areas such as neonatology, surgery, genetics and congenital malformations, and child protection in a user-friendly and succinct style. Sections are also devoted to covering the treatment of children in the community, and the psychological effects of illness on both the child and their family. All chapters have been updated for this new edition, with completely overhauled chapters on neurology and respiratory medicine, the latest management guidelines on inherited metabolic disease, further information on medical and research ethics, and enhanced usage of diagnostic and treatment algorithms. With practical advice and space for personalized notes, this handbook will be invaluable to all those involved in the care of the younger patient.

The continuing development of sub specialties in pediatrics may be justifiably considered to be progress. Due to this fact, complex syn­ dromes can be analyzed today in their pathogenesis, are better under­ stood in their symptomatology, and can be therapeutically controlled. Therapy has reached an unexpectedly high level of effectiveness through this specialization, never dreamed of even a few years ago. No pediatrician can afford to do without it. However, this gain in knowledge inevitably places new burdens on the individual physician because of the confusing diversity of the diseases under consideration. The colleague in private practice who is called upon to treat an acutely ill child is all too likely to have the patient admitted to the hospital without necessity or without the de­ sired diagnostic insight. The hospital-based physician, confronted with the same situation, tends to rely more on a haphazard utilization of the laboratory facilities or the specialists. Should an illness not present itself strictly according to the textbook, the wide range of biochemical investigations and'tolerance tests'to which the patient is subjected offers the physician, made insecure by the diversity of the diagnostic possibilities, an opportunity for thinking and reading on the problem. Medical literature, however, has reached such enormous proportions that many physicians give up trying to keep abreast of it. Be it for lack of time or some other reason, they may consult pediatric literature only superficially or not at all-to the harm of the sick child.