Preface

The sixth edition of Current Diagnosis & Treatment: Occupational & Environmental Medicine continues to serve as a concise yet comprehensive resource for health care professionals in all specialties who diagnose and treat occupational and environmental injuries and illnesses.

The book provides a complete guide to common occupational and environmental injuries and illnesses, their diagnosis and treatment, and preventive measures in the workplace and community. Our aim is to help health care professionals understand the complexities of occupational and environmental health issues and provide useful clinical information on common illnesses and injuries. The book contains many new chapters, expanding the coverage of occupational and environmental medicine well beyond that of the earlier editions. To enhance the book's usefulness as a clinical resource, it is published in the Lange^® Current series. The series consists of practical, concise, and timely books in core specialties and key subspecialties that focus on essential diagnostic and treatment information.

• Detailed coverage on the diagnosis and treatment of a broad spectrum of occupational and environmental injuries and illnesses.

• Chapters on how to conduct an occupational and environmental history, perform a physical examination, and prevent further injury.

• The important role that health care providers can play in preventing disability and in the provision of workers' compensation benefits, with ethical issues and principles.

• Practical information on the toxic properties and clinical manifestations of common industrial materials and environmental agents, with a new chapter on genetic toxicology.

• Techniques to prevent workplace-related injuries and illnesses through the application of ergonomic principles.

  • Emerging issues in occupational and environmental medicine, including climate change, the changing nature of work, total worker health and workplace violence

  • Basics of pediatric environmental health

  • Practical methods and principles in responder safety and health

Section I (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 5) defines the practice of occupational and environmental medicine and introduces the health care provider to the diagnosis of occupational injuries and illnesses. These chapters offer guidance for identifying workplace and community exposures to toxic materials—putting this information to immediate clinical use and applying it toward better health and safety practices in the workplace. This section presents a comprehensive discussion of disability management and prevention. An understanding of workers' compensation law and the physician's critical role in determining care and benefits can be gained from these chapters.

Section II (Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) concisely discusses common occupational injuries and their treatments. Noise-induced hearing loss and the impact of other physical hazards, such as heat, cold, and radiation, are examined. This section also discusses how ergonomic principles can be instituted in the workplace to minimize work loss associated with injury and illness. The chapter on management of chronic pain is a guide to the use of pain medication and to the prevention of misuse of therapeutics.

Section III (Chapters 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28) is a comprehensive discussion of clinical toxicology arranged by organ system, with special emphasis on the environmental as well as workplace origins of toxic exposure. It thoroughly reviews commonly recognized environmental and occupational illnesses and highlights many clinical problems not often thought to be work related. A new chapter on genetic toxicology accompanies a review of occupational cancer.

Section IV (Chapters 29, 30, 31, 32, 33) presents the most common toxic materials encountered in the workplace and community with diagnostic and treatment recommendations. This section is designed to serve as an immediate reference source and clinical guide for the practicing health care professional. The discussion on pesticides emphasizes the environmental as well as occupational exposures that may lead to illness.

Section V (Chapters 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45) presents chapters on occupational mental health and workplace violence, and substance use disorders present programs for controlling and treating these problems. It adds new chapters on sleep disorders and total worker health. These chapters present the roles and responsibilities of the industrial hygienist and the safety professional and serves as a guide for health care professionals to work with them.

Section VI (Chapters 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55) provides a comprehensive discussion of environmental medicine and some of the complex societal issues that accompany industrialization and technologic advances throughout the world. Emphasis is placed on recognizing that some common "occupational" exposures are found also in homes and public locations and require the same high index of suspicion that is assumed when encountered in the workplace. A vital new chapter on climate change completes the discussion.

The Appendix A reviews biostatistics and epidemiology. These topics are important not only in research but also in clinical practice. Ultimately, all occupational and environmental physicians serve as clinical epidemiologists.

A quiz follows each chapter to allow readers to test their retention of key elements of the book. Answers to quiz questions are presented in Appendix B as true statements from the text.