I believe that it is not possible to practice general medicine intelligently without knowing the contents of this book very well.
This is the only monograph about antibiotics that I know of which focuses heavily, and sometimes exclusively, on the why of antibiotic selection. And when it comes to antibiotic selection, you need to know why you are doing what you are doing. Otherwise, you’ll end up using overly broad and sometimes ineffective antibiotics.
You can get away with skimming or even skipping the discussions of efflux pumps, porins and aminoglycoside modifying enzymes, but no amount of cramming, Web-surfing or fooling around with silly mnemonics can substitute for the genuine understanding of antibiotics selection which this book provides.
Unfortunately, the book is a bit dry from a visual standpoint. The print is in only two colors. Further, there are places where the text focuses in detail on basic science areas that are of limited use to the general practitioner. I hope that future editions show Gram stains and other images of various critters. This would enhance memorization greatly. I would also like to see some of the molecular and cell biology concepts trimmed down a bit.
In any event, and notwithstanding the above limitations, Antibiotic Basics for Clinicians, 2e by Alan R. Hauser MD, PhD., is one of the best in its genre and worthy of canonization among the best medical books of all time.
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