Practical Algorithms in Pediatric Endocrinology

Medical textbooks are mainly oriented by body systems, disease or diagnosis, yet the practicing physician is confronted with the patient's complaint by a symptom, physical sign or laboratory abnormality, from which he is expected to diagnose and proceed with treatment. The traditional medical approach is through differential diagnosis by exclusion. Algorithms provide a direct approach to breaking down long lists/tables of differential diagnosis into smaller, more manageable ones. Often, a whole group of diagnoses can be excluded by single or a group of signs, blood tests or imaging. This book is meant as a pragmatic text to be used at the patient's bedside. It classifies common clinical symptoms, signs and laboratory abnormalities as they present themselves in daily practice.Aimed at an audience of general and family practitioners, trainees or pediatricians who are not exposed on a day-to-day basis to pediatric endocrine problems, it provides a logical, concise and cost-effective approach from which they can profit and acquire medical reasoning.