This handbook, now in its third edition, is the sequel to the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine. It has been written primarily for those taking up their first responsibilities in the major specialties of clinical medicine, whether as a clinical student, a junior doctor, or a trainee general practitioner. The junior doctor is expected to be able to finish one specialty (eg psychiatry) one day and be ready to undertake the full responsibilities of a new specialty (eg paediatrics) the next and therefore has to learn on the job. Such doctors need a friend in the pocket to prompt them to ask all the right questions, to advise them on which preliminary diagnosis to make, which investigations to request and how to institute the correct treatment before experienced (and sometimes critical) help arrives in the form of a ward round. The book is not just a compendium of causes and recipes for treatments. It also gives background information to the student, who has never met a given topic before, a useful understanding of the subject. Anaesthesia is the subject of a new chapter and the section on gynaecology has been rewritten for this edition. There are several new topics including: prenatal diagnosis, advice to parents after stillbirth, delay in talking, talking to parents about mortal illness, useful points for relatives of demented patients, managing obesity, adult height and weight charts, squint diagnosis, management of corneal ulcers and obtaining and preparing eyedrops. Many of the existing topics have been updated.