Contact Lens Practice

Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. As Barry concludes, “The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that…those in authority must retain the public’s trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart.”

At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

Titles in the Pocket Tutor series give practical guidance on subjects that medical students and foundation doctors need help with “on the go”, at a highly affordable price that puts them within reach of those rotating through modular courses or working on attachment.

• Common investigations (ECG, imaging, etc)
• Clinical skills (patient examination, etc.)
• Clinical specialties that students perceive as too small to merit a textbook (psychiatry, renal medicine)

Key points

• Practical, accessible introduction to a subject that students find daunting, but which juniors will encounter as part of orthopaedic and emergency rotations
• Logical, sequential content: relevant basic science; then chapters devoted to the clinical essentials of orthopaedics and the disorders and injuries seen most commonly in practice
• Descriptions of common disorders are enhanced by Clinical Scenarios (Patient presents with…), which help students and trainees to recognise and manage common presenting problems