Dermatology made easy pdf download

This textbook has been written by the well known Professor Amanda Oakley, who has become immortalised not only in her role as a leading dermatologist but more particularly as the person who established the world famous comprehensive website for the New Zealand Dermatological Society (DermNet NZ) which serves dermatologists and their patients on a global basis. Not a day goes by that I do not direct patients to this website for comprehensive and accurate information on their skin disorders. Armed with the 15,000 images from this website, Amanda Oakley is uniquely able to provide images on virtually any skin condition - undoubtedly this has helped her to produce a very impressive and comprehensive textbook of dermatology which includes more than 700 clinical images. The book format is a high quality paperback and an electronic version is also available.

This is a beautifully produced and illustrated textbook, which would give any medical student or general practitioner the information, knowledge and ability to treat a wide range of medical dermatology. It would also appeal to the increasing numbers of dermatology nurse practitioners. As an “essential fact” book it would not have sufficient detail for trainees in dermatology.

The book begins, as is often the case in introductory textbooks, by going through the terminology used in dermatology (such as papule, pustule or scale) before progressing to chapters based on differential diagnosis by symptoms (for example rash with fever or itch), by morphology (such as rashes with papules and plaques or skinny rashes) or rashes categorized by body sites. These chapters would certainly help guide someone with more limited dermatological knowledge according to the patient’s symptoms, signs and rash according to body location.

The chapters on individual categories of dermatological conditions are well organised and deal with all the usual dermatoses including infections, drug eruptions, eczema, hair problems infections drug eruptions eczema hair problems and pigmentary lesions. The text is written in a bullet point format making for easy reading and this, taken in combination with an extensive collection of high quality photographs makes the book easy to read and informative. One cannot emphasise enough the quality and comprehensive nature of the photographic content.

In an era where surgical dermatology is now at least 50% of the work in any dermatology department, a criticism of this book is the lack of any section dealing with the surgical components of the specialty with this topic being compressed to 2 pages in a book of 420 pages. This book makes no attempt to deal in any serious way with the growing subspecialty of surgical dermatology. A chapter on skin surgery would inform those practitioners not wishing to do skin surgery themselves while helping those wishing to embark on the most basic skin surgery. Another deficiency was the lack of a specific section on dermoscopy, which is considered by many to be the “stethoscope” of current dermatology, and which has become routine with many general practitioners. While there is selected dermoscopy in some chapters this is not as extensive as one would expect given the popularity of dermoscopy in dermatology. A second edition of this book would benefit from a chapter dealing specifically with the elements of and common use of dermoscopy.

The last sections of the textbook deal with drugs used in dermatology and include sections on drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, acetretin, isotretinoin and immunosupressants such as azathioprine and ciclosporin. By necessity, the information on many of these drugs is basic and suited more to medical students, general practitioners or the increasing band of general practitioners with a specialised interest. This section would not provide sufficient knowledge for practitioners wishing to prescribe these drugs but serve to give a source of information in monitoring such patients and watching for side effects.

My overall impression of this textbook is one of excellence in dealing with all aspects of medical dermatology. The book is impressive and the photographic illustration second to none for any book dealing with solely medical dermatology. It certainly exceeds in quality and information the contents of similar books written for medical students and general practitioners.

As someone who was interested in dermatology even as a medical student my only regret is that this book was not around when I was a student as it would have very adequately guided me into my beloved subspecialty. At a price of £29.99 it is remarkably good value. The book more than exceeds the requirements of any medical student but I suspect will be mainly useful for general practitioners and nurse practitioners with an interest in medical dermatology. I have little doubt that this will be a highly successful textbook given the popularity of the New Zealand dermatology website and the excellence of the clinical photography.