scope:

Paediatric Symptom Sorter is an original work inspired by the best-selling and highly respected Symptom Sorter by Keith Hopcroft and Vincent Forte, now in its Fourth Edition. Like Symptom Sorter, this book's composition reflects the reality that patients present with symptoms rather than diagnoses. Structured anatomically, it provides an overview of the symptom followed by the five most likely underlying causes (differential diagnoses) in an easy-to-use tabular format. Investigative techniques and guidelines follow, ranging from the simple and inexpensive to the more complex, as do tips and warnings to note. This book is vital for all clinicians in the front line when an ill child presents with an acute illness. Experienced paediatricians, postgraduate doctors, primary care physicians and paediatric nurses will find it a useful refresher and it is an invaluable primer for newly-trained doctors and students, or those new to the paediatric wards. I envision that Paediatric Symptom Sorter will become a fixture in paediatric emergency rooms and hospital on-call rooms. I advise that the book be affixed to the furniture in a secure manner. Otherwise, it will soon disappear. From the foreword by James Carroll