Pathophysiology Case Studies

Pathophysiology Case Studies is designed to expose nursing students to disease processes in the format of clinical scenarios and essentially to allow them to “apply what they have learned.” It is designed to be thought-provoking. In order to answer the questions, the students will have to use not only the available resources (i.e. textbooks), but also outside sources. The goal is to ignite the process of analytical thinking, or logical processing of the information given, to solve the problem and come to a reasonable and logical conclusion (i.e. a diagnosis or differential diagnosis). It is intended to incorporate the materials learned in class into the clinical application.

All the case studies are drawn from professional experiences from the authors. Clinical vignettes are written in a format like the questions that will be asked on standardized exams. It is also a means to introduce the students to a coherent method of presenting a patient’s history and physical findings.

The workbook is designed to be inclusive but also acknowledge the diversity of students with respect to interests and academic/professional backgrounds. This workbook is flexible in that it can be used as an adjunct to the lectures; a mechanism to reinforce the lectured materials in the form of homework; a means to foster group dynamics by assigning case studies to groups of students where they will ultimately have to defend their conclusions; and a mechanism to enhance the students’ knowledge base in understanding a disease. We also want to make it a little fun by incorporating crossword puzzle and concept maps.

In the end, we hope this workbook will serve as a foundation to future nursing courses.