Medical emergencies make great demands on the diagnostic and therapeutic knowledge and skill of the junior doctor. As a house officer, there is usually good supervision by senior colleagues, but nights on cover, when help is on the end of a telephone and is about 30 minutes from the hospital, can be difficult. The Oxford Handbook of Acute Medicine provides a handy and practical guide to the management of emergency situations in everyday clinical practice. It is aimed at the newly qualified doctor, following on from the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine. It provides step by step details on the current diagnostic and management principles necessary to allow junior doctors to deal with medical emergencies safely and effectively. It assumes a basic knowlege of disease processes, physical examination skills, and medical terminology, and concentrates on therapeutic and diagnostic decisions. It will also be of interest to Accident and Emergency staff, GPs, some medical students, and nurses involved in the care of acutely ill patients.