Core Textbook of Pediatrics

As in the first edition, the authors, all professors and chairmen of departments of pediatrics at their respective institutions, "attempted to provide a readable book in a size that could be read during the limited time allocated during the pediatrics rotation." As a third-year medical student just completing my nine-week pediatric clerkship, I felt well qualified to review this book. The volume does not claim to be a substitute for one of the major reference textbooks in pediatrics. Instead, the book is a collection of 38 chapters written by 27 academic pediatricians providing differential diagnoses for most of the common presenting symptoms and signs encountered in outpatient or hospital pediatrics. With the exception of one of the three new topics covered in this edition, "The Child with a Limp," most chapters are not as exhaustive as those found in Illingworth's text [1]. The style of each chapter is as individual as its author and, at times, related topics are not appropriately cross-referenced in overlapping chapters. For instance, acute epiglotitis is only briefly mentioned in the chapter on "Respiratory Signs and Symptoms," without reference to the more complete coverage of this medical emergency in the chapter on "Serious Infections." The index ties things together well, however. Starting with the first chapter and its terse description of the history and physical examination, the book emphasizes diagnosis more than treatment; an important exception is the concise chapter on antimicrobials. Supplemented with excellent tables and flow charts, Dr. Oski's hematology chapters are the finest in the book. Though there is a paucity of pictures in this book, the chapters on sexual development and cardiac disease are well illustrated. The chapter on nutrition would be useful reading for most parents.I found a limited number of specific faults. The lengthy chapter on dehydration and fluid replacement states that "no single 'cookbook' approach to the dehydrated patient exists." On the contrary, Yale students and house staff have successfully been rehydrating children using Lattanzi and Siegel's "A Simplified Approach to Fluid and Electrolyte Therapy in Infants and Children." Hyposensitization is advocated in the chapter on allergy without mention of the controversy which surrounds this issue. A conversion reaction is only briefly mentioned as a cause of acute abdominal pain but two common causes, trauma and psychogenic causes, are left out of the otherwise helpful differential diagnosis table in this chapter. Blood culture is omitted from the work-up of a persistent fever in a child. Much of this book is improved by the many charts and tables; an age-dependent growth parameters chart would enhance the clinical usefulness of the chapter on motor and intellectual development. The lack of cross-referencing various interrelated chapters in this book is completely offset by the universal brevity and readability. This is definitely a pediatric text which can easily be read during the pediatric rotation and which