Author Description

This handbook has been written to provide the reader with a practical guide to paediatric respiratory medicine which will be a useful first point of reference for paediatricians faced with children with acute or chronic respiratory problems.This book will appeal to general pediatricians and specialists in pediatric respiratory medicine at both consultant and trainee level. It deals with all the common problems seen by all pediatricians and the rarer conditions more often seen at specialist centres, but managed in collaboration with general pediatricians. The information is in a readily accessible format, with extensive use of bullet points. The focus is on clinical presentation, diagnosis and management of respiratory problems. Information is provided on background history, such as epidemiology, where it provides an insight into clinical presentation and management, and also where this information would be helpful to the parents.This book is divided into 5 sections. Section 1 provides a practical approach to acute and non-acute clinical problems. Section 2 provides detailed information about common and more rare clinical conditions. Section 3 provides useful information on supportive care, including for example, use of non-invasive ventilation and the care of a child with a tracheotomy. Section 4 gives details on how to perform several practical procedures, such as ciliary brush biopsy, flexible bronchoscopy and inserting a chest drain. The appendices provide information on lung function testing and tables of age-corrected normal values for several respiratory parameters.This book has been written by 2 consultants who work in a tertiary respiratory unit and a respiratory trainee. This combination of authors has provided the experience necessary to deal with topics where there is an absence of published evidence and to present the information in a format that both consultants and trainees will find useful.