Best Medical Physiology Textbook?

[samoan]

Hey everyone, I'm currently in my first year at Southampton and have decided to get a my own copy of a general physiology textbook. I've got a few out the library and so had a decent look, but was also interested in what other people's opinions were?

Basically its down to one of the following;

-Guyton- obviously (but I'm not hugely a fan of the rambling like prose). Pretty good though!

-Boron and Boulpaep- Medical Physiology (has the most up to date edition, but appears to miss sections eg immunology etc in my experience). But I like the detail and general cellular/molecular approach.

Tortora- is this detailed enough do you reckon?

Costanzo- Physiology (not read it but appears to be well liked, pos combine with one above because may not be detailed on its own?) New edition also due out soon I believe?

Martini- Not read it, but again appears to be recommended by a few?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated guys, thanks for reading :-)

[samoan]

Well everyone is pretty rubbish at giving advice to this query!!! Come on guys, must be someone out there who has some opinions on it?? :-)

[mbe]

constanzo is the best in terms of layout and the material needed. guyton and boron are way too detailed for the medical course. vanders is the one recommended by our medical school, but sometimes it can be a little too detailed. if you want extra detail, go for vanders, (definitely not guyton or boron) otherwise, constanzo.

[Alex01]

My opininon:

I really like Costanzo.

I tried a few out of the library as well, like Berne and Levy and Guyton, but found them too detailed as core texts. I also tried Lecture Notes in Physiology, but again this was too detailed and full of mistakes/typos!

Just to clarify Costanzo is not a light weight text by any stretch of the imagination, but seems to find the balance between physiology degree level and what a medical student would need to know.

Martini is not a physiology book, but a combined anatomy and physiology book, so if you're going to need to supplement anything it's going to be Martini. I personally don't think it's a bad book for first year, especially if you're finding other books too difficult. I used to read it and then go on to other books, but again be wary of the typos. They seem to persit from one addition to another with Martini.

Good luck and hope this helps.

[couldntgetaname]

On our course, even knowing Vander's cover to cover isn't enough to get a pass. Guyton is probably the way to go, as it seems to be among the easiest to get and balances breadth and depth quite well. The explanations are clear and the diagrams are more about high-yield content than visual appeal.

It is, however, undeniably the ugliest and least friendly textbook ever put together - the contents section seems to have skipped any sort of editing process and it's normal to find large sections on topics the index says aren't covered.

Scratch that recommendation - put the money towards an external harddrive and just get soft copies of *all* of your options.

[samoan]

Thanks for all the replies guys, its appreciated....

[InternalOptimist]

I personally preferred Pocock's...

[Arnold Layne]

Marieb and Hoehn, nice and easy read, can be further reinforced by Guyton and Hall

[MonkeywithaMachete]

Marieb and Hoehn, nice and easy read, can be further reinforced by Guyton and Hall

Marieb is good for getting your head around some difficult concepts, as they don't bombard you with a dozen strange words or acronyms every sentence. Their diagrams are also clear and concise. Level of detail is not brilliant, but as Arnold suggested, reinforcement with another textbook of a greater depth would do the trick quite neatly.

[Anna L]

All these textbooks have their pluses and minuses. So you have to read them all.