This book offers an original approach to diagnosing patients in the office. Medical students will use it in preparing for the USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills exam--Texas Tech students have used the material for years.

It is written by Harold V. Werner, M.D., Professor of Medicine at Texas Tech University Medical Center-Amarillo. He is an internist and board certified in internal medicine, endocrinology -metabolism, and geriatrics. He has taught medical students, residents, nurse practitioners and physician assistants over the past 30 years.

Dr. Werner observed that third-year medical students and internal medicine residents have trouble focusing on the obvious and commonest diagnoses. So he initiated a series of lectures on the 19 common symptoms seen in office practice. Those lectures were copied, passed on from class to class of medical students, and shared with advance practice nurses that he worked with. They have been reviewed, revised, reworked, edited, used every year by 20 residents and 40 medical students in his internal medicine clinics, 4 afternoons weekly. The lectures are now published in book form.

Dr. Werner says the traditional method of office diagnosis is inefficient, because it is the same approach as used in the hospital for very different problems: collect all the facts (history and physical, tests), form a differential diagnosis, order more tests, then make a working diagnosis. "Our way reverses the process. At the beginning of each chapter we provide the clinician the differential diagnosis (3 common causes of that symptom, and the facts--symptoms and signs that differentiate the common causes). Then you simply look for those few "facts" by your history and physical exam in your patient to get your working diagnosis. It can even be used by patients to look up their symptoms and take to the doctor with them."

Each chapter covers one of 19 common symptoms and has questions and answers to focus your thinking on the common causes, an extensive list of clues to dangerous causes (send the patient to the hospital), an extensive list of uncommon or rare causes (so you may not need a specialist consult), and a glossary for precise thinking and accurate diagnosis.

Dr. Werner has been honored as a Fellow by the American College of Endocrinology, named the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center-Amarillo Outstanding Faculty Member, given the Texas Tech Campus-Wide President's Award for Excellence in Teaching, and elected as a charter member of the Texas Tech Teaching Academy.

Werner's Office Diagnosis is available from Jackhal Books, PO Box 357, Vega, Texas 79092-0357, phone/fax 806-267-0240 ($24.95 plus $5.00 shipping). Our web address is http://www.jackhalbooks.com.

Order by emailing werner@ama.ttuhsc.edu, get it at local bookstores, or on Amazon.com.

Published 2004, ISBN # 1-888856-01-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2004206477 Softcover, 259 pages, 5" x 8". It fits in your pocket!