Book excerpt: This case-based approach to decision-making in respiratory care offers a thorough introduction to the processes involved in developing critical diagnostic thinking, followed by realistic scenarios that allow readers to put critical thinking skills into practice. Readers learn how to use information from the patient's history and physical examination to arrive at a differential diagnosis. The book presents cases typical of outpatient, inpatient non-ICU, and ICU clinical settings. Each chapter begins with a clinical vignette that poses an important respiratory problem, accompanied by a description of the patient's history and physical examination, and reviews the common and uncommon causes of the patient's symptoms. Using specific features of the patient's history and physical examination, the reader must analyze the likelihood of a specific cause of the symptom. Critical Diagnostic Thinking in Respiratory Care lays the foundation for clinical practice, taking the reader beyond theory and into the real world of patient care.