Bedside Clinics in Medicine

Medicine is best learnt at the bedside of patients, not just from books, nor from gleaming machines and sophisticated gadgetry. This basic tenet is today increasingly forgotten or ignored, chiefly because of the mechanization of modern medicine and the hubris of its science and technology.
This unique book illustrates how clinical medicine should be both taught and learnt. It presents for the first time, twenty bedside clinics–impromptu, unrehearsed, attended by students, resident doctors, and post-graduates. Each bedside clinic is in the form of questions and answers, with a lively interaction between the teacher and students. Through these recorded live discussions the knotted threads of a patients illness are finally unravelled, by allowing a logical flow of contents–from the all important history to the final diagnosis, management, and patient care.
In this unusual format, the book emphasizes the fundamental importance of the basics of medicine and goes on to relate the basics to science and technology. It throws light on the forgotten art of medicine and illustrates through bedside teaching that
the art and science of medicine must be present in equal measure for maximum patient benefit.