Anatomy and Physiology

Reviewed by Kay Rezanka, Biology Instructor, Central Lakes College on 1/7/16

Comprehensiveness rating: 4

The content contained in "Anatomy and Physiology" is broad and would provide an A&P student with a complete picture of the human body’s structure and function. Instructors will find this text appropriate for a two-semester A&P course. There are some areas of physiology that were much less comprehensive than expected, but overall this text does a fine job of addressing the foundational details of physiology that instructors would expect their students to master. There are a variety of excellent homeostatic imbalance areas of the chapters (both the expected ones and many unique ones), as well as many clinical application/everyday connection pieces. The text also showcases a variety of careers in the “Career Connections” segments. These accessory pieces give students pause to acknowledge that the details of A&P are essential for them to learn for success in many professional fields and for their own personal knowledge. Each chapter also contains review questions with an answer key area at the end of the text. The varieties of supplemental learning resources that interface with the book further enhance the text’s comprehensiveness (pronunciation guide, online homework tools, tutorials, adaptive learning tools, etc.) Interactive link questions accompany the abundant links and provide ideas for instructors to create assignments or activities associated with the links. The text occasionally refrains from expanding on physiological details where I would like to see more. For example, I was surprised to see very little explanation of meiosis in the reproductive system chapter. It is mentioned in the text but not explained except briefly within the figure title. Supporting images are not particularly clear in illustrating chromosome arrangement during the phases.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I did not encounter any inaccuracies in the content beyond those that have been shared through the errata list accessible on the publisher website.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The content is relevant and has lasting power due to its updatable format and interactive links to external websites that can also be updated easily (but will require regular monitoring of changing websites by the publisher to remain current). URLs are linked within the PDF for quick access. The images that were chosen should not date themselves easily. The text uses many eponyms throughout (i.e. Sertoli, Leydig, Langerhans, Henle) but often notes the alternative, more updated terms as well to reflect changing practices in naming.

Clarity rating: 4

By and large, the authors’ explanations are precise and particular. The writing styles of the various authors are clear, readable, and at an appropriate level. The text does an excellent job of guiding students in constructing strong anatomical vocabulary by explaining word origins and connecting to everyday language (the mnemonic device table to help learn muscle names is a nice example). For the most part, challenging topics were well-explained, though often the physiological details were not expanded upon as fully as I would like to see to enhance clarity. There are some areas of physiology where the explanations may be a bit difficult for a typical A&P student to follow without some additional visual support. For instance, the muscle contraction sequence could benefit from a flow chart/sequencing visual. This is the first significant physiological sequencing students may encounter if proceeding chapter-to-chapter in this text, and a visual “map” of the sequence would serve as a good model for how to think in sequences and cause/effect relationships moving forward.

Consistency rating: 4

The writing style varied noticeably across certain chapters, which is to be expected to some extent with a team of authors. While some readers may not notice this, it would help students to have a more unified writing style to guide them as they proceed through the text. Some inconsistencies appear across chapters with terminology or symbolism (partial pressure symbol PCO2 vs. pCO2); use of ion charge as superscripts on some occasions, subscripts on others; with terminology (interpulmonary pressure and intra-alveolar pressure). The non-critical thinking review questions at the end of each chapter are good but are all multiple choice in style. Some additional variety of questions would benefit students. The critical thinking questions vary considerably in style from chapter to chapter (all immune system critical thinking questions are at the “describe” level of cognition). There are occasional inconsistencies between terms in diagrams and terms in a figure title or within the text (“pyruvate” and “pyruvic acid” in Chapter 10, with no explanation of their differences.)

Modularity rating: 4

Its arrangement makes this text agile for use in its entirety in a two-semester A&P sequence course or more piecemeal in another type of course. Within each chapter, content is mostly “chunked” well to make it easy for students to stop at natural breaks and re-read before advancing. While I appreciate that bullet lists are not overused in this text, there are many places throughout where a break in the solid text-upon-text content would be helpful to students in organizing thoughts and seeing the big picture. Many students will have difficulty focusing on considerable text all at once, especially given the single column layout of text. For instance, the flow of the action potential sequence explanation felt quite heavy and would benefit from some compartmentalization of events to help students break the sequence into more manageable chunks.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

I found the organization of this text to be excellent. It is similar to other common A&P texts on the market and is logically arranged from system to system. This structure would make it easier for an instructor to transition from another typical A&P text to this one without having to significantly modify the course layout. It is nice to see a “key terms” section at the end of each chapter. The text would benefit in its flow by expanding on its offering of visual support of complex physiology and placing these as close as possible to the text explanation it references (scrolling to find the image or advancing to another page to complete a table is commonly required). The layout of urinary physiology was a bit awkward to me. The three main physiological events are not showcased as well as I would like to see to help a student grasp the big physiological picture. The flow of female reproductive anatomy and physiology was also a bit challenging to follow. Students may lose some of the physiological continuity here as result. Of course, an instructor can skillfully adjust the flow of this content easily enough to meet his or her style with this text as a reference.

Interface rating: 5

This resource was easy to navigate in PDF form with the ability to jump from page to page, though considerable scrolling is required. Text is searchable for key words from within Adobe Reader. Given the length of this PDF document, it would be ideal if the text page numbers and the PDF numbering of pages could be matched to improve navigability (currently, text page 1 is page 9 in Adobe Reader). Numbering the cover page of the book as page 1 would resolve this. There were no distortions of figures or tables that I noticed. There are areas of the text where line spacing changes from single to space-and-a-half for no apparent reason. This was a mild distraction.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text has occasional, relatively minor grammar and usage errors but not so many that they interfere with the readability of the text.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The text is culturally sensitive and includes examples that are wide-ranging and not exclusive. Many drawings are “generic” so any reader can identify with the images. Varied skin tones are used in some colored drawings. Photos show different regions and peoples of the world. Chapter 28 chapter review critical thinking questions include diverse names (and most other chapter questions avoid names altogether and instead note “a patient” or “a person”).

Overall, I think this resource has an impressive start at becoming a text of choice for many A&P faculty. I think an area of greatest potential for improvement is in its use of visual support of content. I would like to see more continuity between the figures and the text. Sometimes it seems they are separate entities and don’t “talk to each other” well (different terminology used, for instance). I would welcome additional diagrams and/or flow charts that supplement the text’s explanation of the most challenging physiological processes (for example, additional renal physiology diagrams). I was pleased to see many images return to the more simplified, less cluttered style. There is a nice mix of colored and black and white drawings. There are also many good attention-getting images (hand gripping, saccadic eye movements, deadly nightshade, etc.) However, not all illustrations or images were clear and could use improvement in subsequent editions. For instance, some of the histology images did not showcase the identifying characteristics well at all (unable to see striations in cardiac muscle, barely in skeletal muscle). The illustration of ovary anatomy is quite “zoomed in” with little else in the image for reference. Many of the muscle diagrams were rather small, making it difficult to see details. The text's font size is quite small, and while PDF readers can enlarge, those opting to use a physical text may find this makes for difficult reading.