Nelson essentials of pediatrics [antikvár]

The scope of pediatrics has expanded substantially throughout the years when the 13 editions of Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics have been published. During this time, progress in biomedical science and in technology and clinical care has advanced our understanding of the normal biology of children and of the pathophysiology and therapy of many diseases of childhood. More recently, molecular biology and recombinant DNA methods have accelerated our basic understanding of genetic disorders and have better enabled us to diagnose and treat diseases that were previously difficult to Identify or manage. Consequently, we have expanded the Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics in order for it to continue to serve as the major reference text for those who care for children. But this expansion has made it difficult for most medical students to read the entire text during their core pediatric clerkship. In publishing our new text. Nelson Essentials of Pediatrics, we have focused on essential pediatric problems and have tried to present some overview material to meet the special educational needs of the medical student and the starting house officer. Nelson Essentials of Pediatrics is primarily intended to introduce important pediatric problems and diseases, representing both the common illnesses of childhood and the less common disorders of special educational importance that exemplify pathophysiologic mechanisms and disease processes. Nelson Essentials of Pediatrics is not a "primer" nor is it a synopsis of or a companion to the Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, although initially our associates dubbed it "Baby Nelson," "Half Nelson," and "Junior Nelson." We believe, however, that Nelson Essentials of Pediatrics describes this text most accurately. The term essentials does not mean "superficial" or "outlined." Rather, in a readable text with a simplified format and an array of tables and figures, it provides readers with sufficient information to improve their understanding of representative pediatric problems and clinical decisions, enabling them to gain a basic understanding of the particular disease process and to develop a clinical approach to a child's problem. In addition, the relatively short text can be digested during the usual length of a core pediatric clerkship. We have organized each chapter in a way that reflects the clinical approach to patients. The student or house officer first should learn to generate a broad differential diagnosis based on the data obtained by taking a history and performing a physical examination; second, to perform an initial analysis of this data, which is facilitated by thinking about the data in terms of the course of the illness (acute or chronic), the organ system involved, and the evidence suggesting that particular pathophysiologic process may be present (e.g., infection or neoplasm); and third, to use this clinical information and its analysis to determine the kind of laboratory data that will further modify and narrow the list of diagnostic possibilities and lead to more specific diagnostic testing.