Most textbooks on infectious diseases take a disease-specific and/or organ-specific approach. In this book a patient-centred approach is taken. The starting point is the patient’s presenting problem and its evolution. The focus is on clinical diagnosis and principles of management.

The book comprises six parts. Part I, ‘General approach to infectious diseases’, establishes the patient-centred approach. Part II outlines presenting problems and syndromes, and Part III, infections of organ systems. These two sections highlight day-to-day problems faced by clinicians, differential diagnoses and management. Part IV covers specific infections, chosen for their importance or unique nature, and Part V deals with infectious problems in specific hosts and settings. Part VI outlines the principles of antimicrobial therapy and disease prevention through immunisation. The book concludes with a set of ‘golden rules of infectious diseases’.

This is not a comprehensive infectious diseases textbook; it contains what the editors consider to be core knowledge and skills for the practising clinician. Infectious diseases in adults are the primary focus; paediatric infectious diseases are not covered in any detail.

In this third edition

• All the original chapters have been thoroughly reviewed and updated.
• Three new chapters have been added: chapter 25, ‘Herpesvirus infections’, chapter 41, ‘Viral and rickettsial infections of particular relevance to Australia’, and chapter 43, ‘Infectious diseases in the South-East Asia region’.
• An Australasian character is evident, with the inclusion of five new authors from New Zealand and (where relevant and possible) the inclusion of data from New Zealand.
• The companion CD that was included in the second edition has not been retained.

Senior medical students, graduates, and more experienced clinicians interested in the clinical skills of infectious diseases, will find this book refreshingly straightforward, easy to read, and rich with clinical pearls.