3 out of 4 stars
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Imagine you are in high school. You are trying to figure out what to do with your life. You think you may want a career in medicine, but you just aren't sure. What should you do? Perhaps you could volunteer as a candy striper at a local hospital. You also may want to pick up the book Medical Investigation 101 by Dr. Russ Hill and Dr. Richard Griffith with illustrations by Raella Hill.
In this book the reader is introduced to many topics such as how the lungs and brain work. Information is then given on various diseases of those organs and how a physician might treat those diseases. To further involve the reader, the authors give case studies. In these case studies, you can pretend to be the treating physician; this way you can diagnose the patient along with the authors. At the end of the book, the authors hope that you have enough information to know better whether the health care profession is for you.
I absolutely love the idea behind this book. I have always been interested in medicine; and, at one point in my life, considered a career in the health care field. This book would have helped me to better know if this is something that I would not only enjoy but excel at as well.
There is quite a bit of information contained in the book from various specialists to organs to diseases. This has the potential to be overwhelming to some. There are, also, opportunities for further study. On several occasions, the authors invite the reader to look something up or even explore a certain website. Some teenagers would love the opportunity for extra study. Some may not (but perhaps those that wouldn't might be best suited to a different field of study.)
There were also various illustrations used to help the reader understand the various parts of the body better. Rather than the illustrations being "textbook" in that they were realistic, the illustrations were hand-drawn. This seems more appropriate to a younger audience than the teenagers that the book is aiming for.
In addition to the "dumbing down" of the illustrations, I had an issue with the editing and formatting of this book. While none of the errors were egregious, there were too many to say that this book had been professionally edited. Also, the book uses quite a few charts in the case studies sections. These charts were small even when viewed on a computer monitor. When I tried to read the book on my phone, they were illegible. And there was no way to make them bigger. I believe this to be a pretty big error considering most teenagers will probably read this book on their Kindle or smartphone.
In all, this is a fantastic idea for students who think they might be interested in medicine. Due to the errors in editing and formatting, though, I couldn't rate Medical Investigation 101 any higher than 3 out of 4 stars. While some of the exercises and vocabulary in this book are a bit challenging, I believe they are appropriate for those considering becoming a health care professional. It is to those (and parents of such) that I would recommend this book.
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Medical Investigation 101
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