Ed. J Higgs, H Edwards. (Pp 303; £27.50.) Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann, 1999. ISBN 0-7506-3773-0.

This book is too good to hurry. I was at first disappointed as I had misunderstood that it would address itself more exclusively to postgraduate issues, my chief domain. Its 36 chapters pertain to the education of the so termed “beginning practitioner”, defined as “the level of competence and stage of preparation the graduate has achieved on entry to their profession”. However, as the sections were unveiled, it was apparent from the scope of the book that it had intended to address comprehensively …