Every practitioner today will welcome the Handbook of Medicine in Psychiatry as the first realistic, evidence-based overview of medicine for psychiatrists in training or practice because it is * Written to address the lack of empirical data showing how the type of medical knowledge acquired through traditional psychiatric residency training can be used in the psychiatric setting.* Organized to reflect the realities confronting clinicians working in self-standing inpatient psychiatric settings, where inadequate histories, premature diagnostic closure, and a reluctance to perform physical assessments contribute to underrecognized, misdiagnosed, and suboptimally treated medical disorders in at least half of all psychiatric patients.* Based on the findings of a retrospective analysis of internal medicine evaluations requested for 1,001 patients (501 men and 500 women, ranging from age 8 to 98) admitted in 2002 to a 208-bed urban private psychiatric hospital, which found that most medical consultations requested in a psychiatric hospital were due to a limited group of symptoms, signs, and laboratory abnormalities -- that is potential side effects of psychotropic drugs (falls, hyperglycemia, hypotension, hyponatremia, nausea, constipation, leucopenia), pain symptoms, and respiratory and urinary tract infections.* Structured for easy reading and comprehension, with topics grouped in 14 sections according to a common feature, such as cardiac arrest, abnormal vital signs, pain, signs of common infections, and respiratory distress; 5 chapters that discuss essential features in clinical presentation, differential diagnosis, risk stratification, and assessment and management in the psychiatric setting.* Focused on the ways in which psychiatric disorders and their treatments produce pathophysiologic changes and alter the classic presentation of common and serious conditions. Intended to augment rather than replace established print and electronic resources of medical knowledge, the meticulously illustrated and referenced Handbook of Medicine in Psychiatry offers an invaluable resource for clinicians today as they pursue the complex practice of psychiatry in the 21st century.
