The eighth edition of Pulmonary Physiology has been thoroughly
updated. Several new figures have been added and others revised to help
students visualize concepts more clearly and learn the material more
effectively. New references and clinical correlations have been added to the
end of each chapter. It has been more than 30 years since Pulmonary
Physiology was first published. The book is now older than most of the
students reading it!
Perhaps the greatest pleasure
associated with the first seven editions has been receiving the many
favorable comments and helpful suggestions from students, readers, and
colleagues, and I have used many of these suggestions in the preparation of
this new edition.
This book is intended to be used
both as an introductory text for beginning students and as a review for
residents and fellows in such fields as internal medicine, anesthesiology,
pediatrics, and pulmonary medicine. Students who have studied the text
should be able to review for licensure and certification examinations by
concentrating on the figures, key concepts, tables, and appendices, which
summarize nearly all of the material in the book.
My goal in writing this book is to provide first-year medical students (as
well as respiratory therapy, nursing, nurse-anesthesia, and other students)
with a solid background on the aspects of pulmonary physiology essential for
an understanding of clinical medicine. My approach is to encourage
self-sufficiency not only in studying pulmonary physiology for the first
time but also in understanding the basic concepts of pulmonary physiology
well enough to apply them with confidence to future patients.
I believe that the ways to accomplish this are to inform
the reader of the goals of each chapter with clearly stated learning
objectives, to give detailed and complete explanations of physiologic
mechanisms and demonstrate how they apply to pathologic states, and to give
the reader a means of self-testing by providing clinical correlations,
problems, and pulmonary function test data to interpret.
The challenge is to write a book that students can read
without difficulty in the limited amount of time allocated to pulmonary
physiology in the typical curriculum. The material must be presented in a
way that discourages memorization without real comprehension, because only
those students who understand the basic mechanisms are able to apply them to
new situations. The result of this approach should be a book that covers the
essentials of the respiratory system as concisely as possible yet raises no
questions in students' minds without answering them. I hope that I have
achieved these goals in writing this book.
I would
like to thank the many people whose comments have helped me revise the
various editions of the book, including my colleagues in respiratory
physiology and pulmonary medicine, my colleagues at LSU Health Sciences
Center and Tulane University School of Medicine, as well as my students and
readers. For this edition I give special thanks to Drs. Andy Pellett and
Lisa Harrison-Bernard of Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center
and Hershel Raff of the Medical College of Wisconsin. I would also like to
thank everyone who has helped me prepare the manuscripts, illustrations, and
proofs including my many editors at McGraw-Hill. For this edition, I would
especially like to thank Betsy Giaimo, and my wife Elizabeth. This book is
dedicated to the memory of Robert S. Alexander and of Jim Miller.
Michael G. Levitzky