Management Principles for Health Professionals

Well over two million medical students, doctors and other health professionals around the globe have owned a copy of Davidson’s Principles and Practice of Medicine since it was first published over 70 years ago. Now in its 24th Edition, this thoroughly updated textbook describes the pathophysiology and clinical features of the most frequently encountered conditions in the major specialties of adult medicine, and explains how to recognise, investigate, diagnose and manage them. Taking its origins from Sir Stanley Davidson’s much-admired lecture notes, Davidson’s has endured because it keeps pace with how modern medicine is taught and provides a wealth of trusted information in an easy-to-read, concise and beautifully illustrated format.

Key features:

• • Part 1 ‘Fundamentals of Medicine’ – provides an account of the principles of genetics, immunology, infectious diseases, population health, oncology and pain management, along with a discussion of the core principles behind clinical decision-making and good prescribing.

• • Part 2 ‘Emergency and Critical Care Medicine’ – covers medical emergencies in poisoning, envenomation and medicine in austere environments, as well as common presentations in acute medicine and the recognition and management of the critically ill.

• • Part 3 ‘Clinical Medicine’– covers the major medical specialties, each thoroughly revised and brought fully up to date. A new section on COVID-19 has been added and the impact of this infection is described throughout the book.

• • Clinical Examination overviews – extended and updated to summarise the main elements for each system.

• • Presenting Problems sections – provide a clear pathway for the assessment of and approach to the most common complaints in each specialty.

• • Practice Point summaries – detail the practical skills that medical students and junior doctors must acquire.

• • Emergency boxes – emphasise the core knowledge needed to manage acutely ill patients.

• • In Old Age, In Pregnancy and In Adolescence boxes – highlight differences in the practice of medicine in these patient groups, and illustrate the interfaces between medical, obstetric and paediatric services.

• • The text is extensively illustrated – with over 1000 diagrams, clinical photographs, and radiology and pathology images.

• The global perspective is enhanced by an International Advisory Board of experts from 11 countries and by leading authors from around the world.

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.