Saunders Drug Handbook for Health Professions

Saunders Drug Handbook for Health Professions, Second Edition, provides essential drug information for thousands of medications in a user-friendly format. This portable handbook presents drug monographs in alphabetical order by generic drug name.

Each drug monograph cites the generic and brand names, fixed-combination drugs, product availability, pharmacokinetics, action/therapeutic effect, uses/unlabeled uses, storage/handling, administration, indications/dosage/routes, precautions, interactions, side effects, adverse reactions/toxic effect, emergency treatment information (in the event of overdose), and patient considerations. Unique to this handbook, side effects are listed by percentage of frequency.

Another section of this handbook describes the specific actions, uses, side effects, interactions and patient considerations of over 50 drug classification categories. Each classification category includes a table of generic drugs in that category as well as their dosages.

There are several appendixes new to this edition:: antidotes, controlled drugs, drugs of abuse, emergency medication guide, new American Heart Association guidelines for emergency treatment of acute coronary syndromes (chest pain), FDA pregnancy categories, and treatment of arthritis (antiinflammatory drugs). Additional appendixes cover commonly used abbreviations, normal laboratory values, techniques of medication administration, and herbal therapies.

A new drug supplement includes over 75 drugs recently approved by the FDA in 2000 and 2001.