Current Pediatric Practice Series 4

It gives us great pleasure to introduce the latest volume of Current Pediatrics Practice Series. This is the fourth in an annual series initiated in 2013, to coincide with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of PGIMER and the Department of Pediatrics. We are especially glad to learn that this series of books has become a handy aid to Pediatricians working in office practice and institutions, and also postgraduate students across the country. What does this book offer? As in previous years, each chapter has been written by a Faculty member of the Department, drawing on individual expertise, institutional experience, and in some cases pathbreaking research. Readers will observe the emphasis on addressing common problems in child health, particularly issues that are not addressed in standard textbooks. In addition to the stringent standards of previous editions, there are novel features in the 2016 edition of the series. The overall scope and content have been considerably widened, by expanding from 16 to a total of 26 chapters. This has permitted the inclusion of multiple chapters in various pediatric sub-specialties, as well as new areas such as interpretation of laboratory test results, infant nutrition, cranio-facial anthropometry, etc. As we pen these few words, we acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Prof. Sunit Singhi, former Head of the Department, who initiated this series and ably steered it to the present status. We are also grateful to each Faculty member of the Department, other budding experts in various disciplines in Pediatrics, as well as contributors from other Departments in PGIMER for their thoughtful and well-expressed chapters. As always, we are grateful to the readers of this book and value their feedback, because this is the oil that drives the engine for endeavors such as this. We trust that the readers will find the book very useful in clinical pediatric practice.