Description
The commonest prescribing error is not stopping
Broad-spectrum cover gets started because nobody wants to under-treat, and then continues because nobody wants to be the one who stopped. That single pattern accounts for more inappropriate antibiotic use than any knowledge gap, and it is worse in settings with high patient turnover and thin senior cover.
These 488 pages treat that as the central problem.
Written for varied resistance environments
Empirical choice depends heavily on local resistance patterns, which differ enormously between countries and often between hospitals. The book teaches the reasoning for building an empirical choice rather than supplying a single answer, which is what makes it usable across an international readership.
The cardiac infection chapters
Infective endocarditis, with prolonged regimens and surgical timing. Cardiac device infection, where the extraction decision is the management. Sternal wound infection after surgery. Rheumatic fever prophylaxis — still a live concern in much of the world and covered accordingly.
Stewardship in practice
When a culture should change therapy and when it should not. De-escalation as a scheduled decision. Duration, where evidence supports shorter courses than most units use. Oral switch criteria. Penicillin allergy delabelling, which unlocks better therapy for a large number of patients carrying an unverified label.
Suits
Every prescribing clinician — physicians, surgeons, intensivists, cardiologists and pharmacists.
PDF, lifetime access, at CardiologyBooks.com.
Stewardship as a bedside decision
Antibiotic therapy is decided by individual clinicians under time pressure, so stewardship is presented here as a series of decisions rather than a policy document: whether to start at all, how to choose empirically from local resistance data, when the first review must happen, and what evidence justifies stopping.
Duration, de-escalation and the cardiac patient
Shortened-course evidence is set out by infection site, since duration is where most unnecessary antibiotic therapy occurs. Allergy delabelling, oral switch criteria, and therapeutic monitoring are covered practically. Endocarditis, device and prosthetic infection are given dedicated treatment, including the interaction between antimicrobial choice and anticoagulation, and the multidisciplinary decision on when infected hardware must be removed rather than suppressed.
