Ed by Patricia Wilson. Pp 312; Price £24.95. Oxford: Blackwell Science, 1999. ISBN 0-632-05174-4.

A book with a title such as this one makes it difficult for the author to decide what to exclude. This book certainly fulfils its major objective of providing an easy reference manual for the diagnosis and management of common gynaecological conditions. It deals with almost all the gynaecological conditions that could be encountered in the community and the common gynaecological problems in hospital medicine. Overall, the topics covered are well presented with special points highlighted.

The use of pictures relating to almost all the conditions dealt with by the book breaks up what would otherwise be a book of lists. The use of two different views of the same woman exercising on a treadmill certainly made me smile. The first picture tells us she is an intensively training sportswoman who may develop amenorrhoea and osteoporosis with stress fractures while the second picture, on a page dealing with advice to women who do not want HRT, reveals she is a grandmother taking regular exercise.

From a genitourinary medicine trainee point of view, I would have liked to see a more comprehensive chapter on pelvic infections and sexually transmitted diseases (this is the second smallest chapter in the book), and would have preferred this chapter to follow the one on vaginal and vulval problems. I am, however, glad to see that the role of the genitourinary clinic in the management of pelvic infections is emphasised.