Hospital Medicine Handbook: Recognition, Rescue, and the Discipline of Doing Less

Hospital medicine demands more than knowing the right diagnosis. It requires recognizing deterioration early, acting decisively when rescue is needed, communicating clearly across transitions, and knowing when another test, drug, or intervention may cause more harm than benefit. Hospital Medicine Handbook: Recognition, Rescue, and the Discipline of Doing Less is an advanced practical guide to the realities of inpatient care. Written for medical students, residents, hospitalists, advanced practice clinicians, and experienced physicians, it focuses on the decisions that matter when time is short, information is incomplete, and patients are at their most vulnerable. Inside, readers will explore clinical reasoning and diagnostic stewardship, safe admission and discharge, handoffs, patient safety, rapid response and failure to rescue, medical consultation, perioperative assessment, postoperative complications, and the bedside approach to common acute presentations. Detailed chapters also address cardiovascular and respiratory emergencies, kidney injury, fluid and electrolyte disorders, gastrointestinal and hepatic crises, endocrine and hematologic emergencies, sepsis, antimicrobial stewardship, special populations, palliative care, ethics, and end-of-life decisions. Throughout, the handbook challenges reflexive overtesting and overtreatment. It shows how to ask better questions, interpret changing clinical trajectories, recognize uncertainty, and choose interventions because they will change management, not simply because they are available. For clinicians who want to think more clearly, rescue earlier, communicate better, and practice with greater precision, this handbook offers a rigorous framework for better decisions at the bedside.