Bates’ Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking, 12th Edition

Book Preface

Bates’ Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking is designed for medical, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, and other students who are learning to interview patients, perform their physical examination, and apply clinical reasoning and shared decision making to their assessment and plan, based on a sound understanding of clinical evidence. The twelfth edition has many new features to facilitate student learning. As with previous editions, these changes spring from three sources: the feedback and reviews of students, teachers, and faculty; our commitment to making the book easier to read and more efficient to use; and the abundant new evidence that supports the techniques of examination, interviewing, and health promotion.

Throughout the twelfth edition, we emphasize common or important problems rather than the rare or esoteric, though at times we include unusual findings that are classic or life threatening. We encourage students to study the strong evidence base that informs each chapter and to carefully review the clinical guidelines and citations from the health care literature.

Special Features and Highlights

In this edition we have introduced clinical pearls, printed in blue, to highlight key points. We have also used color to highlight textboxes so students and teachers can quickly find important summaries of clinical conditions and tips for challenging examination techniques such as inspecting the fundus or measuring the jugular venous pressure. Many of the figures are new or have been updated and, for the first time, all figures are numbered with captions to make them easier to locate and reference in both the print and electronic editions.