Over several years working in a district general hospital as a physician with a cardiological interest, the common problems in this field are clearer. This knowledge has come through normal out-patient clinic referrals, care of in-patients, and by working in a domiciliary consultative capacity. The problems that concern family physicians nowadays are somewhat different from the problems of two or three decades ago. The accent now is very much on the implications of hypertensive and ischaemic heart disease. Rheumatic fever is rarely seen, though its sequelae may still be discovered. Hence the approach of this book is to the common problems of today in family practice, and the book is not intended to be a reference text book of cardiology. It does not include references because it has been written from personal experience gained from the treatment and management of patients with common cardiac problems. It is hoped that it will be of value primarily to family physicians because it has been written in an attempt to fill a need as measured by the problems that are referred to specialists in the cardiological field. It may prove of value to those medical students and nurses who wish to consider medical problems in a practical way, that is from the ways that cardiac problems present in practice.
