Over several years working in a district general hospital as a physician
with a cardiological interest, the common problems in this field are
clearer. This knowledge has come through normal out-patient clinic
referrals, care of in-patients, and by working in a domiciliary
consultative capacity. The problems that concern family physicians
nowadays are somewhat different from the problems of two or three
decades ago. The accent now is very much on the implications of
hypertensive and ischaemic heart disease. Rheumatic fever is rarely
seen, though its sequelae may still be discovered. Hence the approach of
this book is to the common problems of today in family practice, and the
book is not intended to be a reference text book of cardiology. It does
not include references because it has been written from personal
experience gained from the treatment and management of patients with
common cardiac problems. It is hoped that it will be of value primarily
to family physicians because it has been written in an attempt to fill a
need as measured by the problems that are referred to specialists in the
cardiological field. It may prove of value to those medical students and
nurses who wish to consider medical problems in a practical way, that is
from the ways that cardiac problems present in practice.