Finally! A pockebook for Antimicrobials that is geared to outpatient treatment. This includes having to write scripts and calculate drug dosages for pediatrics! Drugs for Bugs 2003 is part of the growing library of Saint Frances Guide made famous by the Inpatient Medicine text.

Drugs for Bugs 2003 fills a gap in the white coat pockets, somewhere between the Sanford Guide and the Deluxe Tarascon Pharmacopeia.

The first thing you notice about Bugs for Drugs is the text does not take a magnifying glass to read! (unlike the standard edition of the Sanford Guide) The book is organized from a head to toe type of outline: Head, Eye, Ear, Face, Pharynx, Bronchopulmonary, Skin, GI, then GU. At first it takes time to get used to this system, since most of us are used to Sanford. Some topics take a moment to find. For example Acne is not under "skin", but under "face."

Drugs for Bugs gives you so many choices for antibiotic therapy, and it does so in an easy to read format. For "Skin - Impetigo -mild, nonbullous" you get a whopping nine choices for antibiotics. Each one from Bactroban to Keflex is very detailed. You get an idea of how expensive each agent is, all the various dosing forms, for example: Keflex. Available in 125mg/5cc, 250mg/5cc, and adult dosing. In addition, a huge strength of this book is that it also breaks up the pediatric dosing by weight, and suggests the dosing in real world measurements: teaspoons!! NO MORE having to calculate a per kilogram doseage, only to break it up into the required number of teaspoons depending on the drug concentration! This feature alone sets it apart from the other drug dosing texts available. Not even the Harriet Lane Handbook does this!

Drugs for Bugs does an admirable job of overing the most common outpatient infections, from cellulitis to bites to cold sores, each time offering several available choices (for patients with allergies or hypersensitivities.) The only weakness --if you consider it a weakness(which IS clearly stated on the cover) is that it does not cover inpatient regimens. For residents this means also carrying another pocketbook for inpatient antimicrobials. Also, it does not cover some more complex infections such as HIV associated diarrhea, entamoeba, or anthrax.

In summary, Drugs for Bugs packs all the common outpatient infectious problems and solutions into a small, easy to read pocket guide that will make your prescribing tasks easier in this world of gorilla-cillins and the multitude of antibiotics that the drug reps are constantly pushing upon doctors and clinicians. Makes a terrific complement to Sanford's if you don't mind carrying another book. And for you PDA geeks out there, it's also available for your handheld!

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