Medical Physiology was a high school semester elective class I used to teach for students who want to continue learning about how the body works beyond just what we learn in A&P. Most of the students that took this class were interested in medicine, veterinary medicine, nursing, and other life science subjects.
Anatomy & Physiology was a co-requisite for Medical Physiology. Students in their second semester of A&P and students who had completed A&P could take the class.
The class was taught almost solely using case studies from the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science’s database (now hosted by the NSTA). It is an excellent resource.
Listed below are the four units for the course and the case studies that we did for each unit.
Unit 1: Cardiology and Pulmonology
1.1 Case of the Jamaican Fisherman
1.3 Keeping Up with the Joneses
1.4 Ice Hockey Injury (no longer available online for some reason)
Unit 2: Neurology and Myology
2.2 I’ve Fallen Over and I Can’t Get Up
Unit 3: Gastroenterology and Endocrinology
3.2 When Good Antibodies Go Bad (no longer available online)
Unit 4: Create Your Own Medical Case Study
In this last unit, groups of 2 or 3 students create a case study about a disease or injury of their own choosing. Then, they swap case studies with another group and solve that case. I usually allow about a week and a half to create the case in class. It usually takes only two days to complete the other group’s case.
Siebert Science 