Field of medicine: Internal medicine.

Format: Softcover book.

Audience: Internal medicine house officers and practitioners.

Purpose: To make core points from the medical literature easily accessible so that the reader can base practice decisions on medical evidence rather than merely following the habits of more senior colleagues.

Content: Organized according to subspecialty and clinical problem, each chapter summarizes the evidence in the medical literature that supports practice rationale. Common problems from cardiology, pulmonology, gastroenterology, nephrology, infectious diseases, and neurology are included. Classic and recent studies are presented and thoroughly referenced.

Highlights: Each chapter begins with a focused introduction to the clinical problem. An in-depth outline and several tables summarizing relevant clinical data follow. When data are lacking, practice advice derived from expert opinion is presented.

Limitations: By design, the book is limited. Only topics that are likely to be frequently encountered by an internist are included. In areas of much ongoing investigation, such as the treatment of acute myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke or the management of AIDS, only a few references published after 1995 are cited.

Context: This unique reference tool helps the reader make evidence-based clinical decisions without having to search the literature exhaustively. Its concise and portable format will probably make it a favorite among internal medicine housestaff and practitioners. Similar tools available on disk and CD-ROM are entering the marketplace. Two examples are Best Evidence, from the American College of Physicians, and The Cochrane Library.

Reviewer: Kristi S. Dickson, MD, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.

Commentary: Given the exploding database of published medical literature and the push to make practice decisions more evidence-based, tools that allow busy practitioners to solve clinical problems quickly are in demand.