Algorithms in Differential Diagnosis

This is a book for medical students and first-year doctors who wish to learn how to approach a patient's symptoms, and sharpen their skills of clinical reasoning and diagnosis.

Fifty-four presenting symptoms are discussed, covering approaches and conditions across various medical and surgical disciplines. Each chapter sets out the thought process behind history, examination, and investigations for a symptom, providing a systematic and practical algorithm to distinguish one differential from another. The reader will gain not only a functional approach to patients' presenting complaints, but also learn how to better organize and apply medical knowledge in diagnostic reasoning.
Contents: IntroductionHeart and LungsGut and AbdomenKidneys and Urinary TractBrain, Nerves and SensesBloodEndocrine and General Physiological DisturbancesSkin and Subcutaneous TissuesJoints and MusclesFemale Genital Tract
Readership: Medical students and first-year doctors.Differential Diagnosis;Symptoms;History Taking;Clinical Reasoning;Medicine0Key Features:This book covers common presenting complaints in adult patients, cutting across different clinical specialties — from internal medicine subspecialties, to surgical disciplines, orthopaedics, and gynaecologyTo help students and junior clinicians approach differential diagnosis with smart strategies. this book provides the basic schemata, which categorizes possible diagnoses in terms of their clinical picture, identifies key differentiators, and discusses the reasoning process how to comprehensively consider all possibilities yet narrow down to the most likely diagnosisEvery chapter provides a clinical vignette, with a discussion on how the suggested algorithm can be applied to the clinical scenarioThe book is written with input from 15+ senior subspecialty experts