Griffith’s 5 Minute Clinical Consult 2003. Eleventh edition. Edited by Mark Dambro. 1400 pp, illustrated. Philadelphia, Lippincott Williams & Williams, 2003. $59.95. ISBN 0-7817-3753-2.

This 11th edition of Griffith’s 5-Minute Clinical Consult continues the tradition of providing to clinicians a helpful encyclopedia of more than a thousand medical and surgical topics, each recently updated by one of several hundred selected authors and consultants.

Six hundred topics (Acne, Alzheimer’s … Zinc deficiency, Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome) are designated “expanded topics,” formatted into 2 pages of a chart/outline style. Each of the 2-page presentations covers six areas: basics (prevalence, symptoms, causes, risk factors); diagnosis (differential diagnosis, laboratory, imaging, other procedures); treatment (general, surgical, diet, patient education); medication (drugs, contraindications, interactions); follow-up (monitoring, prevention, prognosis); and miscellaneous (ICD-9-CM codes, references).

For example, Child Abuse is described in detail, segmented into emotional and physical components as well as sexual abuse and child neglect. The author then lists the incidence, predominant age of occurrence, 40 symptoms and signs, risk factors, laboratory evaluation and imaging recommendations, special testing, then treatment strategies and resources with patient/family education suggestions. In this case, notes are also included regarding legal issues and requirements in addition to documentation proposals for this particular clinical situation.

Impressive is the manner in which the editor has made so much key clinical information so readily accessible in each 2-page review. One would need to consult a specialty textbook to find additional and more academic information. Virtually every medical and surgical issue in day-to-day primary care is included. Further strength is found in the amazing thoroughness of the cross referencing of indexes with table of contents—no topic or common question eludes the user.

The much smaller (400 plus topics) “short topics” section covers the second tier (lesser queried) diagnoses and treatments (Acanthosis nigricans, Acoustic neuroma … Yersinia, Zygomycosis). Each of these capsules comprises a paragraph with the format of a concise description, cause, treatment, and ICD-9-CM code. These are quite to the point and provide no more than fundamental information.

I found this large textbook-size volume a totally reliable helper in office-based primary patient care. Its built-in efficiency (the 2-page chart format, the limiting of topics to 600 major and 400 minor) is realistically high—such that conferring with it takes little time of interruption—usually less than “5 minutes.” It is also patient-friendly; thus, the material can be readily shared right in the consultation room during the discussion of a particular issue.

Although the person most likely to benefit from the 5-Minute Clinical Consult is the busy practitioner, the major topics get covered with enough detail to also render the text an effective source of general review for continuing education purposes as well as for examination preparation by students and residents in training.

The title summarizes the book appropriately: clinically relevant information in a timely manner. This is undoubtedly one of the many reasons that so many clinicians are likely to continue to make use of this particular resource.