This volume is an exemplary synopsis of pulmonary medicine that has grown from a house staff manual into a minitest over a few short years. It combines excellent tabular summaries with "howto-do-its." It has the advantage of clear language, short sentences, and simplified approaches. Its level is still that of student, house staff, and primary care physician, and this simplicity and directness are among its chief advantages.
The editors, Drs Mitchell, Petty, and Schwarz, have long been associated with the strong University of Colorado (Boulder) pulmonary medicine group and have recruited other contributors with varying experience from among their senior faculty members and fellows. Despite these differences, the resulting chapters are all good and every effort has been made to use the clearest and most direct prose. In many cases, the authors of the individual chapters are physicians who have very great perspective, created through long experience, in a given