Synopsis
This uniquely readable, compact, and concise monograph lays a foundation of knowledge of the underlying concepts of normal cardiovascular function. Students welcome the book's broad overview as a practical partner or alternative to a more mechanistically oriented approach or an encyclopedic physiology text. Especially clear explanations, ample illustrations, a helpful glossary of terms, tutorials, and chapter-opening learning objectives provide superb guidance for self-directed learning and help fill the gap in many of today's abbreviated physiology blocks. A focus on well-established cardiovascular principles reflects recent, widely accepted cardiovascular research.
The supplemental CD-ROM is an interactive, dynamically linked version of the book, which is organized by normal cardiovascular function and cardiac disease. Students may begin a path of questioning with, for example, a disease condition and then pursue background information through a series of links. Students can also link to the author's regularly updated Web site for additional clinical information.
Doody Review Services
Reviewer:George T Deriso, MD(Ochsner Clinic Foundation)
Description:The author of this book successfully integrates traditional biophysical principles and more recent advances in cellular physiology to create this well organized, compact, easy to read textbook of cardiovascular physiology.
Purpose:The purpose is to provide medical, graduate, and allied health science students with a firm foundation in traditional biophysical principles and newer cellular physiology principles. These are worthy objectives and are met very well by the author.
Audience:The audience is primarily medical, graduate, and allied health science students in their preclinical years of training. In addition, this book serves as an excellent review of cardiovascular physiology for medical house staff.
Features:The textbook consists of nine chapters (235 pages, 123 illustrations). The first eight chapters discuss cardiovascular physiology following a traditional organization of topics. The last chapter integrates the information in the preceding chapters describing the function and adaptation of the cardiovascular system for numerous physiologic and pathophysiologic conditions, including exercise, pregnancy, hypertension, and congestive heart failure. Each chapter incorporates several features to aid in learning, beginning with an outline and set of learning objectives, followed by cases and problem sets supplemented within the text to reinforce key concepts, and ends with a summary of important concepts with review questions and explanations as a self assessment tool. Included with the textbook is a CD-ROM that contains the entire text, tools for self-assessment, and material covering 20 topics providing more detailed explanations of concepts presented in the book.
Assessment:The author has succeeded in providing an easy to read book that enables students to learn the basics of cardiovascular physiology in order to build a foundation for understanding cardiovascular pathophysiology, pharmacology, and therapeutics they can use in the clinical years of training.