For anyone who struggled to understand why the nephron concentrates, then dilutes, then concentrates again the urine, this book will do much to ease your pain. Since medical school I've purchased Editions 1, 3, & 5, just so that I could keep up with my interns & residents. Here's how he does it:
#1: short book, (you know how intimidating those tomes can be)
#2: lots of diagrams
#3: end-of-chapter questions (with answers & explanations)

If you want to understand the Kidney, no matter where you are in your studies or practice, I wholeheartedly recommend this text.

Renal physiology can be very difficult to truly understand, and yet an understanding of it is essential to understanding so many aspects of physiology, pathology, and pharmacology. Studying diuretics for cardio pharm is nightmarish unless you understand the physiology of the loop of Henle. Vander takes this difficult yet important subject and makes it easy to understand. The book reads extremely quickly, and the flow-charts and diagrams are amazing. I never even opened Berne & Levy for renal phys--I read Vander's book (which is no longer than B&L's renal chapters) and cruised through renal phys. I am writing this review now, a year after I took physiology, because I am now studying for the USMLE Step 1. I have not looked at Vander's book in a year, but I still remember renal phys, and reviewing it now is the easiest part of my studying (the only easy part, in fact). That is because, thanks to Vander, I actually understand renal physiology. A great book!!

For any medical student that needs a comprehensive, but easily understood explanation of the structure and function of kidneys, I highly recommend Renal Physiology by Vander. It is very well written, and covers all the basic principles that you will need to know to understand pathologies associated with the kidneys.

This book is simply fantastic. For the practicing obstetrician, it encompasses almost all the issues dealing with the specialty, concerning operative techniques. For the student, there is a lot of new approaches to subjects that other books do not show. For example, there's an entire chapter on symphysiotomy, another on external cephalic version, both subjects very rarely seen in such depth in common textbooks. There's also a very good chapter on surgical basics, dealing with needles, sutures and knots. In short, i recommend this book for those who truly love Obstetrics' practice.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Hankins in person and want to express my sincere thoughts. Dr. Hankins is a gifted surgeon and very intelligent man.He has compassion, as well as talent.I recommend his professional expertise. Cheryle Anderson

I purchased this book as a second thought, and found out I got more than I bargained for. The level of expertise and experience with God impressed me initially, but it was the depth of each topic presented by each of the authors that shocked me. When dealing with God and spiritual subjects in books, there are so many approaches, and many that are really weird, but in this book the contributing authors do much to show by scriptures and experience the reality of the need for the church to be seeking God's power, holiness, and evangelistic outreach to the human race. This is not a book of testimonies alone, but scriptures and the reality of the topics listed in the title. Another book that assisted me in certain sections of this book was I Give You Authority by Charles Kraft. Though much different in subject, it assisted me in understanding some things that are occurring in the South American churches. I highly recommend this book for one's bookself, not only for reading, but as a text book for what is happening in Christianity today.

The chapters are written by individuals from various backgrounds who are sensing the Holy Spirit drawing them into a closer relationship with God. This purity of heart has been documented in past and present revivals around the world.

I am looking for a cd rom of thisbook, may be you can tell me if this cd exists? if yes how can I get it?
best regards Dr` Roman Korobochka MD

As a woman who has had a history of difficult pregnancies (including unexplained fetal demises), Williams Obstretrics was indispensable to me in my search for the causes of my missed abortions (late miscarriages). Many doctors feel the less patients know from firsthand sources (such as this book), the better it is. But for me, Williams Obstretrics answered many questions not only regarding my losses but also in my uncomplicated pregnancies. OBGYNs don't need to be told about this book; they swear by it. I think their patients should too.

Picture it. An American teenage girl, helplessly wandering the streets of Paris, unable to find her hotel, a bus station, or even a police officer. Unfortunately, the girl took Spanish in high school. After speaking to several non-English speaking French people, she sits at a bench and cries. But, wait a moment! It is then she remembers the Just Enough French book her foreign language teacher gave her before she left! Hi, my name is Amanda and I was that 16 year old American girl. And yes, this is a true story! Just Enough French practically saved my life! Whether you are a business person or traveller, this book can help you communicate effectively to native French speaking people. Just Enough French is the best French book for beginners. It contains different sections tailored towards the person on the go. It gives great conversation pieces including: to meet people, to get around, to get a hotel, to shop, to order a meal, and to change money. I used every section of the book as I travelled without having a translator by my side! Having never spoken French in my life, I was a little afraid no one would understand me. Luckily the Just Enough French book provides pronunciation directly under the phrase. It was easy for people to understand what I wanted. Another feature of Just Enough French that I love is the "what they will probably say" part. I was always prepared for the follow-up on my questions via this sub-section. Otherwise, I would have never understood the directions or information the Parisians were sharing! Thanks to Just Enough French, I survived a week long journey in France, made good friends, and learned part of the French language. The taste of language that this book provided has encouraged me to further delve into the French language. I highly suggest it for the beginning French student or traveller. Awesome, awesome, awesome book!

Comparing life to a journey is a natural analogy. Both trips have a distinct beginning, a time of passage and exploration and a return. Yet it isn't a perfect analogy, for if we travel in life as we ought we will likely not return to where we started.

L.D. Clark, in LONE JOURNEY AND OTHER QUESTING STORIES has assembled a small collection of varied tales on journeys both internal and external. Sometimes the two merge, the movement in physical space causing or enhancing the movement in emotional space. Some are firmly rooted in realism. Others stray into the side alleys of the mind and spirit.

Some, like "Over Tall Mountain to Short Mountain," result in some tiny measure of enlightenment for the actors. Others reveal the many ways--not all of them viable--of coping with being lost, such as "A Harvest of Weeds" and "The Mountain Lion."

These stories are about passages great and small, those moments in life when we choose a path for reasons that are uniquely personal. Some of those choices are life-changing, turning us in a direction totally new, for good or ill. Others seem minor on the surface, yet carry a suggestion of repercussions yet to come--not change itself, but its seeds.

In "Over Tall Mountain to Short Mountain," a pair of middle class Anglo travelers in search of the perfect Navajo rug encounter a man who understands what they are really searching for. The title story is about a woman's own rebirth as she silently gives birth alone, her solitude her own choice as she searches for her identity apart from those who have always defined it.

Contrasting and complementing these sharp-edged moments of reality is "The Instant of a Wreck," in which the last resident of a dead town hungers for company in the non-life to which he has faded. "A Harvest of Weeds" is a compelling tour of the mind of a man burning with rage and hungry for revenge who watches his preferred self-image shatter irrevocably.

Mr. Clark's tales are most of them rather like Godiva chocolates. Ingested one at a time and savored for their imagery and the glimpses they provide into moments that resonate even if we've never shared the experiences in which they occur, they are a delicious treat. Unlike candy, however, we can enjoy this richness over and over.

I find this book very helpful in preparing for bible study and for the other teacher in Sunday school help them teach the lessons to the children.

For anyone who is in charge of ward activities, stake activities, singles wards activities, family home evening activities, institute activities or any other similar activities for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this book is worth its weight in gold. Having been on committees for most of these types of activities and struggling to come up with ideas to please everyone, this is a great resource not only for the exact activity described but also to use to get ideas for other types of activities, custom tailored to your group. This book is definately a must have for anyone involved planning group activities.

Texas author L. D. Clark has written a tour de force in his latest novel. It is an academic satire that ranks with the work of David Lodge. As its allusion to TRISTRAM SHANDY in its title indicates, it is also a novel about the life and opinions of a consciousness perplexed by his times. Marcus Aurelius Wherefore has retired from Confusion University and is attempting to write the great American novel that eludes us all. He courts his muse, Thalia, something of an elusive electron presence in his computer's cursor, but can't seem to get his ducks (in the form of random notes) in a row. To while the time, Wherefore weaves a saga about an African slave who chases his captured wife into the land of the Comanche-like Torvos. Clark tells this story-within-a-story, which he calls the "Moran saga" after its main character, in his best Western narrative style. Unbelievable as it is, the story sweeps us along like a Texas flash flood through its miraculous events. But Wherefore must keep returning to the "real" novel, which turns out to tell itself despite his halting attempts. And it is a scathing satire on just about every ISM to infect academia in the last half of the twentieth century, from "Marxianity" to French feminism to post-structuralism. Parts toward the end are very strong: the death of Wherefore's friend Andrew (which brings us momentarily into the world of Ivan Illych); Wherefore's final solution to his novel in a proposal for hyperfiction, perfectly suited to a readerly approach and created by the thumbing of the space bar! the wonderful letter of rejection of the Moran saga; the angry Swiftian satire on the impeachment of President Clinton; Wherefore's trip to the underworld to solve the Shandean problem of how to end an autobiographical novel.

I don't think this is Clark's best novel; that honor belongs to A BRIGHT TRAGIC THING, his novel of the Great Hanging of Unionists during the Civil War in Geinesville, Texas. But this is a fine, sometimes outrageous satire. It may offend some sensibilities, even as the offended laugh up their sleeves, even as they realize that, like Cinderella's, the shoe fits all too well.

L.D.Clark has written in Marcus Aurelius Wherefore a modern masterpiece in which a retired professor with a writer's block forces himself to pursue the writing of "the great American novel" on a computer with a cursor that becomes his muse, notes collected over a lifetime of teaching in a large Western University--all in disarray but containing a story of the quarrels and struggles of an English Department faculty beset by change and growth and a foolish if not stupid administration. The story of these problems becomes a universal experience of all academic departments in all universities in the world. The faculty meetings contrast subtely with the tribal meetings of native Indians who have captured Moran, a Negro who along with his wife was bought by a White Man after the Civil War and brought West to become a virtual partner and friend of his owner. In an Indian raid, Moran's wife is taken by the Indians and he goes in her pursuit. The parts of this story that appear intermittently throughout the larger volume becomes a point-counterpoint to the academic departmental struggles and meetings--and these portions appear in italics in the text. This novel deals with the hero/anti-hero problem in literary criticism, with a critique of modern literature and its protagonists by a man steeped in Victorian literature and who brings to modern criticism those Victorian moral values and virtues found in Victorian literature--in itself an important accomplishment. Words and their meanings and use are fundamental to all people in all times and places.The author's use of vulgarity by Marcus Aurelius Wherefore in selected places and situations becomes a commentary on its very inapplicability in literature though it is there to be looked at squarely. There are so many thought-provoking passages in the novel, that it has that classic feel of knowing that one must reread and reread, and in each reading find something entirely new. Finally, while the "truth" of our biblical myths may be gone, the beauty of their telling remains for this Marcus Aurelius Wherefore, and that realization suggests the very definition of "literature."

This is one of those books that once you take the time to get familiar with, it will pull you along at a slow and sometimes painful pace. The honest and direct sensuality of the people, Kate's confusion between the love of life and the distaste for the common man, the marraige of religions, and the stuggle to become true men and women do offer the reader a wonderfly detailed story. I recommend this to anyone who feels they need a mental vacation for the social triviality of the modern day world. It is a book to help regain perspective.

I must agree with the other reviewers that this book has some wonderful writing. There are passages of description that simply dazzle. The scene in which heroine Kate first sees the gathering of the Men of Quetzalcoatl, where the beats of the drums seem to draw the soul from the earth, is absolutely mesmerizing.

Yet for every memorable scene there are pages and pages of wild romanticizing about native values, obscenely outdated musings about race, and odd sentiments about marriage and women. Unlike "Women in Love," this book doesn't present love in a very good light. Kate is seen as a woman torn between her need to be herself and her need to be subsumed by a man. And the answer is unclear at the end. I found her to be a sympathetic character despite her annoying quirks (if she hates Mexico so much, why doesn't she just leave?) and I felt the ending didn't show her growing or changing. I also felt that the other main characters (Ramon and Cipriano) became almost brutal by the book's end, and this development was not resolved in any satisfactory way.

I have to admit being profoundly disappointed by the ending, and by the bizarre theorizing about the soul of the "dark races." But, I had to keep remembering that this book was a product of the early twentieth century. And the writing is what still makes it masterful.

In the area of the poetic use and the beauty of the English language, this book is well-written and certainly worthy of one's time taken in reading it. The language and the imagery invoked is breath-taking. In the area of subject matter, it is rather unique. An Irish woman journeys to Mexico just after the Mexican Revolution and becomes involved with two men who have taken it upon themselves to return Mexico to the religion of Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli. She joins them to become the First Woman of Malintzi and wife of the First Man of Huitzilopochtli. However, in the area of social language, the book is a product of its time. The Mexican people -- and all "dark" people -- are the objects of particularly malignant language, which I found objectionable. As an historian, I can place the book in its proper perspective, however, and recommend it as a good read.