Springer Adolescent Medicine in the Middle East: Principles, Perspectives, Practices

Adolescent medicine is often neglected in Middle Eastern settings. Pediatricians often are skilled in caring for patients up to the onset of puberty, and internal medicine physicians have expertise in caring for adults. In fact, in some Middle Eastern countries, pediatricians care for children up to age 14 years, internal medicine physicians care for patients after age 18 years, and family medicine is not yet fully developed as a specialty. However, the age of children covered in the field of pediatrics is expanding upward, and the field of family medicine is growing. In the meantime, current training and practice leave clinicians with an unfilled gap in knowledgeably caring for adolescents. This book is designed to facilitate excellent care of adolescents in the Middle East. As the subtitle (Principles, Perspectives, and Practices) suggests, it is not intended to repeat all the medical information already available in other disease-based textbooks of pediatrics and family medicine, nor does it focus on details of problems related to sexuality and substance abuse, as many adolescent medicine resources do. Instead, this book focuses on specific, common adolescent concerns and places them into the context of Middle Eastern settings and cultures. It provides an underlying approach to the care of all adolescents as well as tangible direction to guide the care of individual adolescents with common medical conditions. The text is organized into eight main sections each highlighted in further detail through the context of Middle Eastern society. It opens with introductions, basic background information on adolescent medicine and routine care. The next section discusses a variety of issues that can occur during puberty. The fourth section details problems of growth and nutrition while the fifth describes functional and structural disorders. The sixth section focuses on mood disorders while the seventh discusses chronic disorders with a final conclusions chapter rounding out the table of contents. Written by experts in the field, Adolescent Medicine in the Middle East is a useful guide for pediatricians, internists and family medicine specialists as well as medical students, resident physicians, psychologists, nurses, physical therapists, dieticians and anyone involved in the healthcare of adolescents in the Middle East.