Preface

We have been gratified by the response we have received since taking over the helm of Ganong's Review of Medical Physiology with the 23rd edition, and now with two additional editions under our belt. It has been our goal to reorganize and update this venerable resource, while maintaining the features of the book that gave it such an important place in the worldwide marketplace for physiology texts for the 22 editions produced by the extraordinary Professor Fran Ganong. We have paid particular attention to overhauling the graphical aspects of the volume to aid in consistency among chapters and to take advantage of its new full-color format and have added new pedagogical features, such as clinical correlations and therapeutic highlights. Throughout our endeavors to uphold Professor Ganong's unique perspective we have noticed that the book's comprehensive nature reduces its utility as a tool to review physiology content in preparation for Step 1 of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). We also felt that the current edition could be improved with supplemental resources with which students can assess their own mastery of the content.

With these limitations in mind, we are pleased to present this companion title, Ganong's Medical Physiology Examination & Board Review. Our primary goal has been to streamline the text of the “parent” volume for ease of review, retaining only the most high-yield concepts and illustrations. We have specifically reworked the self-study questions from the original book so that they are consistent with the “clinical vignette” format found in the USMLE and have added many additional questions. In fact, this new book has more than 350 questions to test basic physiology knowledge in an applied context. Finally, every question carries a comprehensive explanation of why the right answer is in fact correct and why the distractors are wrong, further enhancing conceptual understanding of physiology rather than simply reinforcing rote memorization. With these new features, this companion volume represents a robust resource for USMLE preparation.

This new volume also introduces a change in the authorship team. While Professor Heddwen Brooks will continue to contribute to the parent volume, other commitments precluded her involvement in the current project. We are very fortunate to have been able to recruit Professor Jane Reckelhoff to the author group. Janie is an acclaimed teacher of medical and graduate students at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and brings a wealth of experience in the areas of renal, cardiovascular, and gender-related physiology research to our group. Janie's involvement, furthermore, means that three past presidents of the American Physiological Society are now included among the book's authors—perhaps a record for a physiology text.

We hope that a new generation of students will benefit from Ganong's Medical Physiology Examination & Board Review—either in conjunction with Ganong's Review of Medical Physiology, or as a standalone resource. We also hope that the late Professor Ganong would have been pleased with this evolution of the text that became his life's work.