Textbooks, as we know, can be both goldmines or empty shells. They can be full of biblical prose, disjointed, ambiguous, verb-less sentences of verbosity, or witty, concise, razor sharp and, most importantly, informative.

We're familiar with the cinematic line "open your books and turn to chapter...", or "we'll start at page...". In the world of academic texts, this is often the way. We pick up the tome with a question in mind, flick first to the index and then directly to the focus of our attention. Be it to describe the conflicting pressure gradients of the nephron, or the capital of Kazakhstan, we seldom languish in the remainder of the text.

Recently, I've made an effort to read the first few chapters of a textbook, particularly the introduction. I suspect that this is primarily because I'm reading specialty texts, and I'm keen to learn the basic approach. That is, how the author (and by extension, their specialist colleagues), approach their field.

How strange that, after nearly eight years of tertiary education, I'm reading books with fresh eyes. Not the fact-seeking ruthlessness of exam-study precision, nor the trivial style of someone looking for a tidbit to impress their consultant. Instead, before diving headlong into the finer points of the Pathologic Basis of Disease for another round, I'm trying to see how Drs Kumar, Abbas and Fausto think about their field.

Pointedly, page 2 of the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine tells us;

"Decision and intervention are the essence of action: reflection and conjecture are the essence of thought: the essence of medicine is combining these realms in the service of others."