Preface

The first edition of the Canadian Clinician’s Rheumatology Handbook was entitled the Canadian Residents’ Rheumatology Handbook, and it was designed to enhance and support a national rheumatology curriculum for core internal medicine trainees in Canada. Over the years, the book has been a helpful resource to medical students, family physicians, allied health professionals, and others. Thus, this second edition is more broadly geared to all Canadian clinicians, both trainees and those in practice, to help provide a starting point in the approach to common presenting problems of patients with rheumatologic disease.

Introduction

The Canadian Clinician’s Rheumatology Handbook is designed to give the clinician a starting point in assessing the patient who presents with a particular rheumatologic syndrome. The Handbook provides a foundational approach and will help guide the user to identify where further reading in a standard textbook or current literature will optimize care of the patient. Chapters on the use of laboratory investigations and imaging provide a quick reference to enhance the ordering and interpretation of these tests. The “Selected Rheumatologic Emergencies” section will help the clinician to quickly get organized in the face of an acutely ill patient and will lay the groundwork for appropriate investigation and management. Finally, the sections on physical examination and joint injection techniques will serve as a refresher for some clinicians or as an introduction for others. Joint injection techniques, however, cannot simply be learned from a book, and the clinician should endeavor to have supervised practice before routinely doing these procedures. It is impossible to list every reference and additional resource in a small space, but many chapter authors have tried to provide some key references for further reading. Several excellent standard rheumatology textbooks can provide a structured and detailed approach to build on the learning in this book. Management of rheumatic diseases is a rapidly evolving area—searching the current literature is the best approach when more detail is required.

We hope that you enjoy using the Canadian Clinician’s Rheumatology Handbook and anticipate that it will enhance your comfort and proficiency with the approach to the presenting problems of patients with rheumatologic disorders.