Welcome to the Royal Darwin Hospital. Since the Northern Territory has no undergraduate medical school, medical staff coming here to work will generally have completed their training and gained experience in a variety of hospitals elsewhere in Australia, as well as overseas. Because of the climatic, demographic, and legal differences in the Territory, the "Darwin Way of doing things" may be somewhat different from the practises you have previously used. For the benefit of newly arrived medical staff, this Handbook attempts to summarise some of the more important of these differences. These are presented as "approved procedures" to be adopted for Administration and Organisation, for Patient Documentation, in Outpatient Departments, and for Inpatient Care. It also includes approved "protocols" for the management of some of the more unusual medical emergencies seen in the Territory.