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This is a unique textbook for dermatology. It is organized mainly around clinical presentations, in other words "what walks in the door at your office or clinic". PLEVA doesn't walk in the the door, but a guy with a generalized rash does, and you have to figure out that it is PLEVA.
The text is organized into 3 main parts: 1 - differential diagnoses, 2 - the diseases, 3 - other dermatologic information
This text centers around the differential diagnosis. When you see a patient you must go through a differential in your mind (no matter how obvious the diagnosis seems to be) or you will miss things. If a certain diagnosis does not enter your mind, then you will miss it. A good differential diagnosis list is no more than five diseases because that is all you can realistically remember and quickly recall while the patient is standing in front of you during a busy clinic. Sometimes I will include an "extended" list that is usually made up of diseases that are "rare" or "distinct" and I will indicate this. "Rare" of course means that it is a rare disease and you probably do not need to have it in your differential (at least not when you are first learning - you can add it when the differential becomes automatic and you want to be more advanced)."Distinct" means that the presentation of the rash is so distinct that it is not really useful to add it to the differential.
The real strength of part 3 is the organization. It helps you put an entity into a broader context. For example, you can look at spider bites and then realize that spiders are arachnids, but so are mites and ticks.
note about abbreviations: all of them can be found under "Lists" in a chapter called "abbreviations"
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