Guyton. Textbook of Medical Physiology

[Guest Ian Wong]

Textbook of Medical Physiology, 9th Ed. Guyton, A. C., Hall, J. E. 1996. W. B Saunders Company. Toronto.

 

ISBN: 0-7216-5944-6

Chapters/Indigo.ca price: $101.00

Pages: 1148

 

Guyton is the only Physiology textbook that I have used, although there are a multitude of others, including Berne and Levy, and Rhoades and Tanner. I also bought this book on the recommendation of my second year classmate after first year Orientations, and I wish now that I hadn't.

 

In my experience, Guyton has a wealth of useful information, but it is presented in an incredibly visually-aggravating format. Many of my classmates sold this book in disgust after first year, after discovering that they hated to use it. The book is presented in column format, with two columns per page like the Merck Manual. The book is extremely text-intensive, with the font size often alternating between column headings (one size is just right, and the other is a little too small to read comfortably, especially at night after a long day). Column headings are in an irritating (to me anyway) washed out reddish-pink colour, and paragraph headings are printed using small caps, which are hard to read. There are a fair number of diagrams and tables, all either black and white, or black and that reddish-pink colour. There are no colour photographs in this book.

 

To be honest, I think this book can either very useful, or very poor depending on its intended usage. I can't imagine a worse book to use if this is your primary reference, and the book you consult first when starting a new organ system block where you are trying to get the big picture. For example, suppose you were starting the renal system on Monday, and never having been taught about the kidneys, wanted to do some light reading over the weekend to ensure that you don't get completely lost throughout the week. The Kidney and Body Fluids section in Guyton spans seven chapters and 123 pages of heavy, detail-laden minutiae. None of these chapters provides an overview, but rather dives straight into a detailed discussion about a specific part or function of the kidney. Good luck trying to make heads or tails of all the different transporters in the nephron!

 

On the other hand, if you approach Guyton as being a reference book, then it becomes quite useful when researching learning issues, or fleshing out a poorly-taught lecture because you are looking for a specific topic, rather than trying to conceptually grasp the overview. It's a handy book to have with you if you've already managed to grasp the overall picture using a simpler physiology textbook or your lecture notes. Of course, this is all predicated on whether or not you mind the visual format of the book. It's also quite unlikely that your medical school will ask you questions to the same depth of difficulty as this book. For these reasons, I think Guyton is a book that I probably didn't have to purchase, as long as I had access to it in the school library.

 

My personal feeling is that somebody with a strong previous background in Physiology will be able to make maximal use of this book. For the rest of us, you'll probably want to start off with a more introductory physiology textbook, and save Guyton for those referencing occasions where the light-weight book just doesn't have the depth of detail that you require. For those rare times, you can just take it out of the library.