What is Pathophysiology?
Pathophysiology is the study of functional changes in the body which occur in response to disease or injury. For example, if someone ingests a toxin, that toxin might be associated with a variety of physical changes, such as inflammation in the stomach lining or necrosis of the extremities. The field of pathophysiology is designed to help people study the progress of disease so that they can quickly identify diseases and consider various treatment options. This field is required study for most people who work in the medical profession, including doctors, nurses, and medical technicians. Understanding the progress of disease is key to learning how to identify and treat it, and many medical professionals gain additional pathophysiology skills in the course of their work. A radiologist, for example, often becomes quite adept at identifying the structural changes associated with cancer as a result of viewing hundreds or thousands of films. There are two separate medical fields involved in
