The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Diagnosis, Fourth Edition, is a leading guide to help the medical trainee move from a presenting problem to a well-reasoned diagnosis. It also describes how to explain such a rationale clearly and confidently to other doctors, examiners, and also patients and relatives. This ground-breaking, and practical handbook identifies the possible results of the history, preliminary tests, and examination that can be used as a 'lead' with a manageable list of differential diagnoses. Combinations of findings can then be found in succinctly worded tables that can be scanned quickly for a diagnosis compatible with the patient's findings, and the presenting complaints. Readers can also test what they have learnt by hiding parts of the tables before trying to recall the differential diagnoses and confirmatory findings. This flexible approach is different to that of starting with one broad finding (e.g. 'chest pain') and being led through a long list of diagnostic possibilities displayed by fixed flow charts. The book concludes with a chapter that analyses traditional diagnostic reasoning in great detail, and how it can use modern technology.This fully revised fourth edition is aimed primarily at medical students and resident doctors who wish to improve their diagnostic skills and is now accompanied by 100 online example case histories to which the knowledge in the book can be applied, and diagnostic skills can be practiced. It provides all doctors with a rapid, succinct revision source and practical help when dealing with undifferentiated problems outside their immediate field of expertise. It also provides more senior doctors with examples, and a framework to help teach trainees to approach diagnostic problems logically, and to justify their opinions in a structured way. This can avoid breakdowns in communication that are so common in today's multi-disciplinary care.
