The new text must reflect more closely the reality of modern practice and integrate infection subject groups. Infection control practice and hospital epidemiology now are leading priorities for most infection practitioners and they are beginning to be a recognised sub-discipline with its own skill set. Common approaches to data capture, analysis and translation into policy are critical for successful infection management.
Chronic sepsis is optimally managed by multi-disciplinary teams (MDT) able to integrate complex diagnostics and monitoring to address the needs of patients who often require long-term antibiotic therapy. MDT management is a standard of care for the best centres managing tuberculosis especially MDRTB where clinical, laboratory and community control must be carefully integrated. The best HIV care must integrate clinical care, viral load testing, and social support.
The knowledge base of infection has expanded so much that it is no longer feasible that a textbook of this nature is written by a small group of authors. For true relevance it is proposed that the revised edition by written by a group of expert authors in each of the subject areas. This would link with the intention to group subject areas in relevant constellations of infection syndromes.
Based on the successful system approach of the third edition the fourth will go further developing chapters that reflect modern practice as noted above. Examples of these new subject areas might be traveller and migrant health or infection control and hospital epidemiology. Diagnostics, antibiotic pharmacology, would have sections devoted to them, but it is likely that the reader would approach these via links from disease material. For example the reader would be reading the section on the management of chronic bronchial sepsis and might follow a link to the antibiotic pharmacology section moving on to read about Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy (OPAT) applied to these patients. The specialist areas of the text will have sufficient detail to enable this book to compete for the science microbiology market.
