Adolescent Obsterics and Gynecology

I recommend this book to family physicians, pediatricians, and all other physicians and health workers who care for females ranging from over 10 to 21 years of age. The obstetrician and gynecologist who may care for comparatively few members of that age group may also learn much from it about the nature of these young people: their physiology and growth, their attitudes, needs, traits, and sources of anxiety. It follows in the tradition of those physicians in recent times who have devoted themselves to improving the quality of adolescents' medical care through increasing our understanding of these young people themselves as well as their disorders. I believe that Parsons and Sommers' general gynecologic textbook was the first one to be divided into sections each of which considered one of the seven age periods of a woman's life: one of the sections was devoted to adolescence. Its first edition was published in 1962, the same year that Somers Sturgis and his associates published their perceptive, The Gynecologic Patient. Dr. Kreutner and Dr. Hollingsworth and their contributors offer an extensive coverage of the adolescent girl's physiologic and psychologic processes and of the gynecologic, obstetric, and sociologic problems she may present. Throughout the book they emphasize the physician's need to keep in mind what his patient is like: how she differs from a child and from an adult. Today, his head crammed with facts about disease and harassed by demands on his time, a physician needs to be reminded of what this girl is like, and reminded to give her equal attention. Significant as that emphasis is, this book does not neglect an informative coverage of the wide variety of topics relevant to its field. Reproductive and psychologic growth and development, menstrual disorders, venereal diseases, neoplasms, rape, sexuality, pregnancy, labor and delivery, abortion, drug abuse (including alcohol), counselling, contraception, mental retardation, and the legal aspects of adolescents' care are among the major areas given thoughtful discussion. No textbook will ever cover each topic exactly as one or another physician would wish: Its statistics may vary from one physician's experience, from one race, or one culture to another; and its up-to-date theory or advice may be contradicted tomorrow. Furthermore, some will wish that these authors had given more space to the pros-and-cons of abortion, the topic of excessive anovulatory flows, the preventive value of sex education prior to, and during, adolescence, the psychosomatic aspects of dysmenorrhea, or to the opportunities for family life counselling during pregnancy, or to education directed at the prevention of rape. However, even if any of those or other topical comments were worthy of more consideration, they would not detract from my recommendation of this sensitive, informative book.