Book review: Current Practice Guidelines in Primary Care 2007

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 49, No. 10, December 2007, Page 564 News
By: Heidi M. Oetter, MD

Book cover

This tiny little book is advertised as the most current compilation of screening, prevention, and management guidelines for more than 60 common outpatient conditions. Indeed, it is a comprehensive and concise collection of guidelines for primary care physicians regarding the frequently encountered conditions presenting to a community-based practice. 

The references are divided into three broad categories: disease screening, disease prevention, and disease management. Where available, references are listed, and a number of very useful web sites are provided for further information. Many of the web sites that I accessed were so useful that I have printed hard copies to keep as references for myself. While provided as a book, such a reference tool would be of greater utility if it were in a PDA format, or if it were integrated as a decision tool as part of an EMR.

Heidi M. Oetter, MD. Book review: Current Practice Guidelines in Primary Care 2007. BCMJ, Vol. 49, No. 10, December, 2007, Page(s) 564 - News.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

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