This little book has been written primarily for the senior house officer
in Accident and Emergency and the registrar pursuing a career in the
specialty. I hope also that it will be of interest to medical students.
Thanks to the initiative of Professor Miles Irving, Professor of
Surgery, University of Manchester, medical students have been taught
Accident and Emergency in Hope Hospital since 1974. Many of the answers
to the questions here have been elaborated as a result of their
enquiring minds. It has been a pleasure to teach them. MCQs should be
informative and entertaining and not regarded as a tiresome chore merely
because of self- assessment scoring. I have omitted the boxes and the
"don't know" response. The answers are either true or false. I have
attempted to slot the questions into various sections with some degree
of sequence, but there is an inevitable overlap particularly with regard
to the sections on the unresponsive patient, poisoning and injury. The
final section is a selected mixture of Accident and Emergency and I
thought "Pot- pourri" an appropriate title. I have enjoyed compiling the
questions and I hope that both undergraduates and postgraduates will
find reading them a painless and worthwhile exercise. Finally my thanks
are due to my secretary Eileen Bates for her typing and patience.