Genetica Medica (Spanish Edition)

Editorial Reviews

This is a lovely new book on medical genetics. The worthy objective is to provide an up-to-date introductory text on medical genetics. Intended primarily for medical, nursing, graduate, and undergraduate students, the authors suggest it will be useful for housestaff and practicing physicians as well. Because of its very definite focus on human medical genetics, I suspect it will be used primarily in courses for medical students and genetic counselors. The volume is very attractive, containing numerous photographs, diagrams, and drawings that are well integrated with the text. The quality and pedagogic value of the illustrations is superb. Interspersed with the text are brief summaries, in bold type, to reinforce important concepts. Numerous ""Clinical Commentaries"" on specific diseases are used to further illustrate or reinforce the text. A set of study questions follows each chapter, and a complete answer key is provided. References and bar code indexes for the CD-ROM photographs from the ""Slice of Life"" series are used to augment the photographs in the book. This is a very well-conceived and well-written introductory text, which should be seriously considered by medical school course directors. However, I was disappointed with the coverage of two important topics: (1) biochemical genetics and the function of proteins (gene products) in health and disease and (2) therapy of genetic disorders. Despite this, many ""new topics"" in genetics (e.g., imprinting, uniparental disomy, mitochondrial genetics) are well integrated and unusually well covered.