For eight decades the Primer on the Rheumatic Diseases has been the standard text from which most medical students and house ofcers have learned rheumatology. I myself will never forget thumbing through an older edition of the Primer as a second-year resident, while waiting to review a perplexing patient with my tutor. Fortunately the tutor was r- ning late with his own patients, so I had time to fip through the book - then much thinner - a couple of times. While turning the pages, per- ing the features of those diseases whose names were still exotic to me, and considering my patient's history of conductive hearing loss and p- monary nodules, a light went on when I stumbled eventually on a part- ular chapter. I still remember the jaw-dropping efect on my tutor of my announcement then that I had a patient with Wegener's granulomatosis. I think I became a rheumatologist that very moment Subsequent editions of the Primer have sufered from the inevitable "obesity creep," making it an outstanding reference textbook but virtually impossible to fip through quickly while awaiting one's tutor, and even more difcult to slip into the pocket of a white coat to carry on rounds. For this reason we have created the Pocket Primer, a mini version that cuts the larger book down to its essentials.
