A provoking account of prescribing in General Practice, 'Therapeutic Dilemmas for the MRCGP' is a unique new guide to the prescription minefield. One of the most controversial areas of general practice, therapeutics is also one of the central disciplines of the profession. Prescribing drugs for patients and their illnesses is not as easy as it might at first seem. Many factors need to be taken into account: government policy, costs, the patient, long-term aspects, truth versus drug industry hype, who should/should not receive certain drugs, etc. Therapeutics is one of the central disciplines of general practice and MRCGP candidates are expected to demonstrate a knowledge of controversial areas of practice.

The combination of GP (Charlton) and Clinical Pharmacologist (Mucklow) is a good one. Charlton has written extensively on this area for 'Doctor', 'MIMS Magazine' and 'Physician' and has experience both in the UK and New Zealand. Dr Mucklow has taught therapeutics to GPs for 15 years and now runs adistance learning diploma course in advanced therapeutics for GPs at Keele University. Focus on the MRCGP makes the text attractive to trainees, and the book also contains MCQs at the end of each chapter.