April 14, 2014 - Associate Professor Deborah Weisbrot, MD, and her husband, Alan B. Ettinger, MD are co-editors of a new book published today by Cambridge University Press titled Neurologic Differential Diagnosis: A Case-Based Approach. Dr. Weisbrot is the Director of the department’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic. Dr. Ettinger is a Professor of Clinical Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Epilepsy Director of Neurological Surgery, P.C. a private practice based in Rockville Centre, NY.
The book was written to provide a quick but comprehensive guide for busy professionals seeking to make a differential diagnosis based on their patients’ neurologic and psychiatric symptoms. Situated in a niche between voluminous textbooks and overly simplistic checklists, the new book provides clinicians with more than a hundred topical references to help them decide if a specific presentation fits with a potential cause. Each chapter is authored by an expert or team of experts in the specific topic and is accompanied by relevant case studies.
“We hope this book advances the quality of care,” Dr. Weisbrot said. “Having an easily accessible guide of this nature benefits not just physicians but their patients as well, as it will help avoid misdiagnosis and diagnostic delays.” A companion text by Drs. Weisbrot and Ettinger on psychiatric and neurologic complications of systemic disorders is slated for publication before late 2015.
Drs. Weisbrot and Ettinger have published together before. Their 2004 book The Essential Patient Handbook: Getting the Health Care You Need — From Doctors Who Know provides a practical guide to getting help from doctors, based on the authors’ personal experience as practitioners and as patients.
