This is a greatly expanded successor to McWhinney's An Introduction to Family Medicine (Oxford, 1978). It includes much new material on the nature of family medicine and on specific clinical problems. There are two new chapters on the experience of illness, suffering, and healing and on doctor-patient communication. The chapter on the philosophical and scientific basis of family medicine has been expanded to do justice to the growing support which the paradigm of family medicine is receiving in the biological, medical, and social science literature. The chapter on clinical method--perhaps the book's core--has a new look and greater depth reflecting work in this area over the past decade. The chapter on prevention provides updated recommendations, and the chapter on the family has been enlarged. The most noticeable change is the addition of five new chapters on common family practice problems. These chapters have a dual purpose: to exemplify the application of principles discussed earlier in the book, and to distill the information on each problem that is most necessary for family physicians. This is an ideal text for medical students taking a family medicine rotation and for beginning residents in the field.