? My friend is being a doctor and I are not interested in studying medicine, but at least have a framework that can help me? Im not smart or that science is so inclined to lower it would be useful jargon
Tags: book, could, Encyclopedia, gain, Journal, Medicine, read, rudimentary, understanding
Medical Examination and Health Assessment- Jarvis (I have the 2008 edition and I’m very happy with it)
Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine
An introductory level human anatomy and physiology text (I suggest Marieb & Hoehn’s Human Anatomy and Physiology)
A microbiology or pathphysiology text if you’re really curious.
A drug guide (2009 edition).
If you don’t want all these I’d say that the medical dictionary and drug guide will get the most at home use.
Or…use Mayo Clinic when you have a specific condition you’d like to research. They also have a bookstore on their website. You can sign up for their Health Newsletter, too (I’ve received it for years).
I think “medicine” is a field in which one can not reasonably have a “rudimentary” understanding from just one text. The field is far too vast and complicated to have such an understanding from a single volume. Without a foundation in chemistry, biology and mathematics, any knowledge of “medicine” is likely to be far less than “understanding” of any significant sort.
I think it might be best to research a specific area of human development or disease about which you are interested. I also think it is very important always to keep in mind that every function of any living thing is part of a system – or of numerous systems.
Many medical texts are astonishingly expensive. Perhaps you could borrow a text from your friend at a time he or she does not need it, such as after a particular semester or year of studies.
If you have access to a college or university, you might want to enroll in an introductory biology or chemistry course. Any biology course is likely to be more interesting if you already have at least an introduction to chemistry. If that is not an option, try one of the “Dummies” series of books. There are “Chemistry for Dummies”, “Biology for Dummies”, and even “Calculus for Dummies” if you want to learn about such fields without taking a course. Most good public libraries have such books, or can order them from another library.
Maybe when you start reading about some of the things that are a part of medicine, you’ll find that you will want to become a physician yourself.
Good Luck!