Intended specifically for undergraduate majors in health sciences, the primary aim of this text is to prepare students to understand the chemistry of the living cell. Each chapter begins with a chapter outline and a chapter-opening "Case in Point", illustrating the connections between the material to be studied and a relevant medical topic. In addition, each chapter includes one or more illustrated essays on such topics as biomedical implants, cisplatin, food irradiation, the greenhouse effect, lactose intolerance, octane ratings of gasoline, DNA fingerprinting, and drug strategies for reducing serum cholesterol. In this sense, the text is attractive for a course restricted to health sciences majors.

A sufficient number of worked examples are included in the text; but the explanations are sketchy, with little conceptual material, and the presentation of the examples encourages students to memorize the equations and setups and plug and chug their way through to the answers. I found the explanations of concepts to be arduous and in some cases inadequate to develop an understanding of the reasons why things happen the way they do.

The authors focus on developing skills in calculations and recall of definitions, but I would prefer to see more focus on the why's. The explanations are briefperhaps too short, and would likely be helped by the use of diagrams and color clues in example calculations as appropriate.

I find our health sciences majors to be less fluent and comfortable with anything involving calculations than, certainly, our engineering or other sciences majors. Nurses in particular, however, will be required to make calculations of dosages and concentrations in patient care, and so must not only be able to do the calculations correctly in class, but to remember years from now how to do these same calculations. This long-term memory will come from a thorough understanding of "why". I find our kids are likely to plug numbers into a calculator in random order, hoping to get one result that matches one available as A, B, C, D, or E on the exam question.

In patient care, this just doesn't work. The only cure for this is to develop the conceptual understanding. In my own research in cognitive profiles, I find health sciences majors most often are sensory/emotional learners. They are concrete learners who need to see, touch, smell, taste, or hear things happen in order to "get" what's going on. Lecture is least effective. These students also need to be able to relate on a personal level with the content, and to talk through the concepts in order to build the connections they need. This book is reasonably effective in the regard of personal connections, in that it includes asides relevant to medical applications and everyday life. The students also need a liberal dose of hands-on laboratory experience, demonstrations, and cooperative work to develop fluency in chemistry.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of this text is that it is narrowly defined for health sciences majors. For this reason I feel it is inappropriate as an introductory course for a population that frequently also includes education, graphics communications, social science, and forestry majors as well.