The McKinley/O'Loughlin/Bidle: "Anatomy & Physiology: An Integrative Approach" text brings multiple elements of the study of A&P together in ways that maximize understanding. Text discussions provide structural details in the context of their functional significance to integrate coverage of anatomy and physiology in each chapter. Chapters emphasize the interdependence of body systems by weaving prior coverage of one system into textual explanations of how other systems work. These system relationships are also covered in "Integrate: Concept Connection" boxes. All figures are carefully designed to support the text narrative, and carry brief textual explanations to make figures self-contained study tools. Special "Concept Overview" figures in each chapter tie together multi-faceted concepts in 1- or 2-page visual summaries. Applications are presented in "Integrate: Clinical View" boxes to apply chapter content using clinical examples that show students what can go wrong in the body, to help crystallize understanding of the "norm;" clinical scenarios are also used in "What Do You Think?," "Can You Apply What You've Learned?," and "Can You Synthesize What You've Learned?" question sets; and career opportunities pursued by students studying A&P are highlighted at the beginning of each chapter. Everyday analogies and practical advice for remembering material are presented in "Integrate: Learning Strategy" boxes. Chapters end with a summary of media tools available to help learn each chapter's content. Users who purchase Connect Plus receive access to the full online ebook version of the textbook.
Overall, the book was okay. However, some of the chapters were more confusing than necessary. Sometimes I had to reread sections just to understand what it wanted me to know, because I got lost in the superfluous writing. Although, I did well in the class, without lecture I would have really struggled with some concepts that were made harder to understand by the way it was written.
Informative and generally easy to understand but also convoluted at times with certain errors throughout the text. (Read and studied from the second edition, by the way). This is the A&P bible at my school, and there was never a day I did not depend on McKinley's divine words of enlightenment to help me through study sessions, but I sincerely hope this is the last time I lay eyes on this book for a good, long while.
I'm just A&P'd out.
But for a solid reference? This is a book you may want to have on hand. ...Even if it played a part in making me frustration-cry too many times to count.
This textbook was extremely interesting. Easy? Not at all! But only because of the sheer amount of information that it covers. There is so much information in this book that it’s daunting. But if you pace yourself through it which my A&P class did, it’s manageable. Mostly :) There are a lot of figures and tables to help illustrate the narration of how our body works and everything in it. I enjoyed the overall topic and had my favorite sections, but the whole book is a fantastic reference for anyone learning about Anatomy and Physiology.
There is a lot of information in this text. It is very in depth and the lab book and e companion site make this book worth the money. Teachers and students both like this book.