The goal of this book is to help young doctors achieve careers that are satisfying for them and beneficial for their patients and families. Nurses may find this useful as well.

The focus throughout is on the process of practicing clinical medicine rather than on information, and on how each student or resident can learn to develop their own natural abilities to achieve maximum success as a doctor.

The style of the book is relaxed and conversational. This is not a textbook but rather a series of reflections and discussions around the central themes involved in practicing medicine. The topics and presentations are based on the author's f our decades of practice in teaching hospitals while helping to train thousands of medical students and residents. The shared experience of caring for patients and the innumerable questions raised by these young doctors form the basis of the material.

A central premise of the book is that even the most complex skills of medicine can be broken down into discreet, readily learned tasks. Using this approach, each of the skills that contribute to excellence as a physician are made understandable and then applied in a practical manner to the care of patients and their families.

Differential diagnosis and medical decisions form the intellectual core of the book. Considerable attention is given to the roles of logic and Bayesian reasoning that are essential for managing the uncertainty involved in these two critical skills. The patient is always at the center and extensive use is made of clinical examples to illustrate the concepts, gradually increasing the complexity from the most simple situations to the most difficult challenges that confront doctors each day. The importance of recognizing and addressing patient concerns and psychological needs is continuously reinforced.