When I opened this book, the first thing I noticed was the very few similarities between this and the previous edition. The authors are the same (although their order has changed), the evidence “cube” is still on the front cover, and the title is still Clinical epidemiology. However, the subtitle gives the clue to the major change: from A basic science for clinical medicine to How to do clinical practice research. This book couldn’t be any more different from the previous edition; gone are the statistics (as it states, “this book isn’t about biostatistics,” and the authors “apologize” for the oversimplification in terms of the numbers) and gone is the use of clinical research in clinical practice (this “how to use” research is the domain of the several good evidence-based medicine [EBM] books around).

So what is this book about? This new edition is now clearly focused in how to do clinical practice. It is aimed at investigators at any stage of their career, “from beginning students to seasoned investigators,” and is a culmination of the authors’ experiences in undertaking …