Stevan Emmett, Nicola Hill and Frederico Dajas-Bailador

Published by the Oxford University Press (October 2019)

ISBN 978-0-19-969493-8

Price £34.99

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/clinical-pharmacology-for-prescribing-9780199694938?q=978-0-19-969493-8&cc=gb&lang=en

Many moons ago when I was a medical student, I enjoyed the topic of Clinical Pharmacology. This interest remains with me to this day both as a prescriber and keeping up to date in the ever-changing world of therapeutics. So, it was great interest that I opened the covers of this book and looked to see what was on offer

I was greatly impressed with what I found. All the contributors seem to be British based, though the illustrator is based in the United States and it seems to be written for medical students and nonmedical prescribers (an increasingly important group) as well as doctors both established and in training. However, I think that all prescribers and associated support teams should be interested in this excellent book no matter where they are in their career. In particular, practicing GPs may like to look at this book as a means of refreshing their knowledge of clinical pharmacology relevant to their practice.

It is a chunky paperback book which comes in at 732 pages and there seems to be a very good broad coverage. This is key to the book’s success as it offers the reader a seemingly very wide and in depth coverage of common clinical pharmacology issues related to prescribing. Therapeutics is an ever-changing discipline and blink and a prescriber or prescriber in training, can miss a number of important therapeutic changes or new breakthroughs.

Also, because it is a new book, it is very up to date and a good example of this is the excellent chapter (9.5 on Page 495) on Multiple Sclerosis. There is a superb review of the pathophysiology as well as clinical presentation and management. As expected, there is a big section on drugs and it is very good. The illustrations in this book are on the whole superb and an excellent example of this is figure 9.11. This is a brilliant depiction of the pathophysiology of this condition and pictorially highlights drug mode of actions. It is full of information and it deserves close study which I am sure will add to the reader’s knowledge.

The book has a number of impactful illustrative figures covering a wide range of topics and they are excellent. I hope in future editions that there will be more of them. Equally there are numerous tables and boxes which help to amplify the text. Whilst the text itself, is well written and easy to understand and there is plenty of it.

Even better, this book is excellent value for money and comes in at a very competitive price. Price sensitive students as well as postgraduates (including medical and non medical prescribers) looking for a clinical pharmacology book aimed at prescribers (essentially this is the title) could be interested in this excellent book. Just as important, I enjoyed reviewing this book and certainly learnt new and important information.

Dr Harry Brown

1^st December 2019