For instance, recently, I admitted a child to the hospital with Kawasaki disease. Looking up this condition in Shah and Laude, I found an outline containing synonyms for the disease, a brief definition, and short passages on the etiology, epidemiology, pathogenesis, key clinical features, laboratory tests, complications, treatment and prognosis. Tables and charts addressed variant clinical features, the differential diagnosis and atypical presentations of Kawasaki disease. Eleven pictures illustrated features of the examination, including a comparison of the typical rashes associated with the disease and a 2-D echocardiogram showing a coronary aneurysm. Another strength of the book is the picture selection.
Some atlases provide one or two pictures showing typical clinical presentations of a condition.
However, Shah and Laude provide additional pictures demonstrating conditions that commonly present with similar findings but are very different. For instance, periorbital edema with proptosis could be the result of cellulitis or acute bacterial sinusitis. Shah and Laude compare these two conditions using radiographs and computed tomographic images to highlight the distinctions, thus reinforcing the use of these modalities for accurate diagnosis. The book also brings home the meaning of many clinical descriptions we hear in medical school, which are often meaningless in our own clinical experience. Many clinicians know this description and have correctly supplied it on tests but have never seen either one.