Common Problems in Office Practice: Methods of Diagnosis and Treatment

Abstract

This short, soft-cover book focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of problems frequently encountered in the office of a family physician. Dr. Taylor has an easy style and spices the text with a number of interesting or amusing quotations. However, despite the book's readability, the author fails to achieve his goals, to offer up-to-date advice to the established and to save the new practitioner much trial-and-error learning. The major reason for failure is that the author does not deal with the various problems in sufficient depth to be truly useful. In the section on arteriosclerosis he writes Hardening of the coronary arteries may result in angina pectoris and may precede an acute myocardial infarction. Surely, no trained physician learns anything from such a statement. On the other hand, a few paragraphs later, in discussing hyperlipidemia he states that if dietary restriction doesn't work, prescribe clofibrate; there is no attention