of this two-volume unusual textbook of medicine is the product of a long-time yearning that I have had for authoring a multi-specialty textbook that goes straight to the point in addressing the needs of medical students who will eventually practice in a setting that I call "the frontline." In addition to medical students, I had busy practicing general practitioners in mind as they attend to a wide range of patients with medical challenges that may span multiple specialties. The third category of target-users of this book is specialists who are consulted by occasional patients whose medical issues are not in their specialty.