[.ca] Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide (ISBN 0684847035)

From Amazon.com:
These days, when you only get to see your physician for 10 minutes after waiting several weeks for an appointment, you're often forced to get your information somewhere else. Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide will do what your doctor can't: answer your questions for hours on end. This richly packed compendium offers more than a thousand pages of health information compiled from the expertise of 7,000 physicians and researchers. Whether you're figuring out what your symptoms might mean, researching a disease, looking up a medication, learning about a body part or function, or formulating questions to ask your doctor, you can find the medical knowledge here--and in simple, layperson's language. You'll undoubtedly make the most use of the diagnosis section, in flow-chart form. You identify a symptom, then answer a series of "yes" or "no" questions--where the pain is located, when it occurs, what makes it worse, and other related symptoms, for example. Each answer leads you to another question and/or to an action you should take, with page numbers where you can find more information about the condition you may have. Very clear and well organized! The Color Guide to Visual Diagnosis lets you match your symptom with close-up color photos of various skin infections, cancerous growths, fungal infections, insect infestations, and other conditions. The book also has chapters on lifestyle changes that will enhance health, such as nutrition, exercise, smoking cessation, and safe sex. Added bonuses are sections on eldercare, death and dying, drug interactions, and emergency care. This book is a treasure and a bargain! --Joan Price

a must-have for every family:
This guide is the only general medical guide you will need for your family. It has great symptom charts, pictures, explanations, information, & instructions for thousands of situations. It is an emergency medical guide, a compilation of articles by medical experts, & an all-round great source of medical information. I love this book! We're buying more for presents.

Very thorough and easy to use:
I bought this book because I wanted a reference guide for all of the health concerns I have and may have. Its incredibly thorough and its easy to use. The only criticism I have is that no matter what symptoms you have, the book's answer to everything is to see a doctor. It might be helpful for them to go more into detail on what you can do about something before you go in, or home remedies.

A BOOK EVERY FAMILY SHOULD HAVE:
Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide is an excellent source of information on medical topics for the common people. Written in plain, simple English, the book gives information on diseases, their prevention and treatment, when to call the doctor and when to try home remedies, and how best to deal with certain ailments for which there is no cure available. The book has many easy to understand flow-charts and numerous illustrations of body parts and their locations, many of which are in color. From expert advice to home remedies, from pregnancy and childbirth to living will and how to deal with death, from drug interaction to important telephone numbers, the book has it all. I found the book so useful that I bought a second copy and gave it as a gift to my daughter who has her own family. One important advantage of the book is that it will never go out of date as a supplementary online version is available which always includes the latest medical theories and developments. The only negative point is the book's quality of binding. For a book that thick (1288 pages), the binding is not strong. Both the copies I bought broke at the spine in a few days! The contents of the book deserves a 5 stars rating. But because of its poor binding, I am giving it 4 stars.