Essentials of Pathophysiology: Concepts of Altered Health States (Point (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins))

What makes this book so good is that before the book discusses about the various diseases that affect the organ systems of the body, you get a preceding chapter that explains the physiology of that organ system when homeostatically normal. This allows the student a quick review and allows the student to compare the behavior of the organ system's state when it is healthy to when it is altered by disease. Additionally, this book comes with an excellent studyguide to help the student focus on what is important about the various diseases, syndromes and conditons that can make the body unhealthy. The CD that comes with this book is a great educational tool as well. The writers and the publishers of this book did a very fine job of making sure all the tools are in place to help the student appreciate and understand pathophysiology and its importance in the health field.

This book also has good color pictures of how various diseases look and flow charts of how the disease progresses or manifests.

The only problem with this book(a minor problem) is that some diseases are not discussed deeply enough. I think that since this is a pathophysiology book, it should go more indepth with the common diseases. An example is the disease glacoma. I'm not sure if it covers glacoma but if it did, it did not cover the signs and symptoms of it enough. It needs to focus on the mechanism of the disease on a cellular level as well as on an organ level. There are some diseases in which the signs, symptoms and diagnosis is well portrayed but the mechnisms are not. Also it needs to focus less on the treatment of the disease and more on the diagnosis IMHO, however that is disputable becuae that is just my opinion.

Overall this is a fine book. I guess in time this book will have some new improvement when the new editions come out. Good book.