Klabunde pens 2nd edition of cardiovascular
physiology textbook
Updated Cardiovascular Physiology Concepts
hits book stores

By Charlie Martinez
Oct. 31, 2011
The world was just waking up to the possibilities of the World Wide
Web in 1998 when Richard E. Klabunde, Ph.D., began putting
course materials online for his students.
“I’ve always been an early adopter of technology in my teaching and
in my research,” said Klabunde, an Ohio University Heritage College
of Osteopathic Medicine (OU-HCOM) associate professor of physiology
who admits that he’s “kind of a computer geek.”
Those initial postings turned into
www.cvphysiology.com, a unique, 300-page teaching website
designed and launched by Klabunde himself the next year. The site
was so successful that publisher Lippincott Williams and Wilkins
approached him about writing a textbook based on it. The book,
Cardiovascular Physiology Concepts, published in 2004,
was officially integrated into the curricula of 23 institutions and
sold more than 12,000 copies. In September, Lippincott Williams and
Wilkins released a second edition of the book, also by Klabunde.
Like the first edition, the updated Cardiovascular Physiology
Concepts is aimed at first- and second-year medical students,
though nurses, physician assistants and other allied health students
will find it useful. Even though the fundamental concepts explained
in the book have not changed since the first publication, Klabunde
said a new book was needed, in part, to reflect new understanding
provided by emerging research at the molecular and cellular level.
Another reason had to do with the author’s own experiences as a
medical educator. Klabunde created the more than 140 drawings and
illustrations in the book’s first edition. He found himself using
more simplified versions of those drawings in class so he revised or
redrew more than half of the illustrations that appear in the new
edition.
“I evolved in my own thinking and how I want to convey and explain
concepts,” he said. “I wanted to include those changes in my new
edition.”
Readers who pick up this new version can still access Klabunde’s
website as well. They’ll find mini-lectures, tutorials and, coming
soon, self-assessment quizzes that help increase student learning.
The website now receives as many as 360,000 page views per month
during the academic year, and students from all over the world email
Klabunde thanking him.
“I just watched your
eight-minute overview of the pressure/volume loop for the
ventricles,” one first-year medical student wrote him. “Thanks for
seeking to help confused students everywhere.”
While he’s thrilled with the success of his website, writing
textbooks is close to Klabunde’s heart. As an undergrad at
Pepperdine University he was motivated by a textbook he used in
class, Textbook of Medical Physiology by Arthur Guyton.
“I was very inspired that one man could write a whole physiology
textbook,” he said, explaining that since then he always wanted to
author one himself.
Writing textbooks also lets Klabunde draw from his rich
multidisciplinary background. Before coming to OHIO, he taught at
six different medical schools, worked for a pharmaceutical company
as a senior cardiovascular researcher and directed cardiovascular
research connected with Deborah Heart and Lung Center in New Jersey.
Today he’s already under way on his next textbook, which focuses on
information from both his cardiovascular physiology site and his
cardiovascular pharmacology site (www.cvpharmacology.com),
which he began in 2006. He expects the book to be released for use
with the Kindle and iPad, technologies that will allow him to
hyperlink terms and link to his websites.
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