Pediatric Board Certification Review and Medical Ethics

This is the seventh (2007) edition of Pediatric Board Certification Review. Readers of earlier editions have told me that the Review has helped them not only pass, but also score high in the Pediatric Board examination. While their success has confirmed the relevance of the Review's material, their insights have inspired suggestions to improve future editions. The present volume is in many ways my response to those suggestions. ‘Key words’ are written to make the diagnosis.

Medical ethics is a new and an important chapter in this book. Biological and chemical terrorism are also added.

My goal was to make this edition even more useful than its predecessors. Every chapter has been revised in the light of information from journals published since the last edition. There are also more important visual aids than ever before: 357 pictures (including x-rays, sonograms, CT scans, syndromes, and skin lesions), 69 graphs, 84 tables, and 11 EKGs. I have also provided answers to almost 5,000 indirect questions. Some new pictures are added and some old pictures are deleted.

Traditional topics have by no means been neglected: audiometry, tympanometry, growth curves, BAER, flow volume curves, hematologic peripheral blood smears, glucose filtrative curves, L:S ratio curves, postnatal development of organs, fetal hemoglobin curves, renograms, radionuclide renography, urodynamic studies, and cardiac shunts for congenital heart diseases are all well-represented. I can confidently state that in no other single volume will you find as much information of this type. If you need more in-depth discussion of a topic, however, by all means consult your textbooks! This book complements them, but it does not replace them.

Every important area of pediatrics has been treated, either separately by system or intersystematically. Many key points are repeated and highlighted throughout the text. There is also something very important in this edition: a "Miscellaneous" section wherein you are likely to find important topics not treated in the main chapters. Since the Board examination does not follow any predictable order, let alone that of a preparation guide, you should have a sense of that unpredictability before you walk into the examination room. The "Miscellaneous" section will give you that sense. The “Miscellaneous” section is extremely important.

My sincere thanks go to Josh Furman for his continued support, L. Janacek for her clear diagrams, Preeti Agarwal and Atul Kumar [email: atul_kumar@apyl.com] for their first-rate desktop publishing expertise. For whatever room for improvement yet remains, however, I alone am responsible.

They say good luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity. If that is true, there is no need to wish good luck to those who apply themselves diligently to this book, for they will certainly be prepared!

D. Kanjilal, M.D.