What's hard about basic science?

fk you acetylcholine
 
Question: any opinions on whether the ideal gas law relationships (PV=nRT and all the subsidiary laws) are high-yield in medicine?

Initially I had thought so, because frankly I find that these relationships come up over and over in life, if you pay attention. But when I sat down to consider, I can't think of many aspects of physiology where they're important. Any votes?
 
Brandon O said:
Question: any opinions on whether the ideal gas law relationships (PV=nRT and all the subsidiary laws) are high-yield in medicine?

Initially I had thought so, because frankly I find that these relationships come up over and over in life, if you pay attention. But when I sat down to consider, I can't think of many aspects of physiology where they're important. Any votes?
Click to expand...

I would completely agree with that.
 
The gas laws seem to be the way to go in understanding pulmonary mechanics besides using intuitive explanations (although physical models work well to bridge any gap in understanding).

At the end of the day, we are going to simplify and black-box the clinical picture or physiology in front of us to conform to the way we understand the world.

Whether you use PV=nRT, an alternative explanation, pictures, models, or any combination of those, the student should have the relationships down.
99% of students will see a math equation and not realize the equal sign is what makes the equation, not the values one gets out of it.
 
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I think gas solubility (Henry's law and temp influence) is important in pulmonary physiology, as is an understanding of partial pressures/Dalton's law, but I'm trying to think of an important role for the pressure/volume/temp relationships and I'm not sure it's there.
 
I've only heard the pressure/volume relationship being used to describe basic biomechanics: the diaphragm primer, this is a pneumo, this is PEEP, obstructive airway disease is bad.

You are probably right in that it doesn't yield as much as the other concepts.
 
This project has reached the stage of a rough manuscript. Would anybody be willing to give it (or a portion) a quick read and offer their feedback? I'm interested in the perspective of both learners and educators, but most especially the latter who might be recommending a text like this in their classes.

PM or post if you're able to help out.
 
Happy to read through -- if you have a PDF or Word copy, I can throw some comments in.
Might even be worth making a Google Doc...get a bunch of folks on it?
 
Not a bad idea for later on... At the moment I'm mostly looking for broader points. I'll shoot you an email.
 
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