Common Physiology Textbooks Used in Nigerian Medical Schools-Need for a Broad-Based Review Innocent Abi * and John OI Department of Physiology, College of Health Sciences, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria * Corresponding author: Innocent Abi, Department of Physiology, College of Health Sciences, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria, Tel: +234 803 490 7193; E-mail: abinnodr10@gmail.com Received Date: December 21, 2016; Accepted Date: January 05, 2017; Published Date: January 12, 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Innocent A, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract The future of medical education is highly dependent on the quality of teaching tools employed by the educators. Textbooks are vital tools for teaching as they are valuable resources in the process of education. The basic medical sciences forms the foundation for medical training, and Physiology education is key. Nigerian (and indeed African) medical instructors are highly dependent on the developed world for the textbooks and research materials they employ in training their students. They common Physiology textbooks they use are mostly by non-African authors. These textbooks as beautiful and voluminous as they appear fail to fully capture information that reflect some of the pathophysiological peculiarities of the Nigerian/African population. Such an information gap has the capacity of creating a disconnect between the actual knowledge acquired in school and the practical situation present in the society. Considering the current paucity of research work from local authors there is need for more pro-activeness from indigenous researchers to bridge such gaps. Both government and private sector participation is also needed towards supporting the writing of physiology textbooks with a broader all-encompassing approach. This is a step that can pave way for an academic revolution not only in Nigeria but in the entire African continent. Introduction Textbooks are core learning media composed of text and/or images designed to bring about a specifc set of educational outcomes, with an inherent power to transmit knowledge, develop skills and shape the learner’s world view. Textbooks can also function as valuable resources in the process of education for sustainable development and disease prevention. A good textbook therefore is one that engages the students and relate to their realities [1]. Textbooks and resources should be considered as an integral part of establishing, within education arrangements, the policy intentions of a national curriculum. High quality textbooks are therefore necessary tools for efective teaching [2]. Textbooks and other learning materials are expected to be in sync with and relevant to process of survival and progress of society. Today, there is a dire need to domesticate textbooks for students in Nigeria to refect local context [3]. Another study also showed that even though indigenous textbooks are fairly patronized by Nigerian universities, a greater percentage of resource allocation for textbooks are still being absorbed in the development and management of foreign textbooks [4,5]. Te commonly recommended Physiology textbooks for the training of pre-clinical medical students in Nigeria are Guyton and Hall textbook of Medical Physiology; Ganong’s review of Medical Physiology and Essentials of Medical Physiology by Sembulingam. Te frst two are written by American authors while the last is by Indian authors. Te styles of presentations in these books are by far (no doubt) more excellent than the very few by our local authors. However it is worrisome that key subjects relevant to the African medical students are either completely missing or scantily discussed. Areas of lapses in physiology textbook for Africa Blood physiology: It is a well-known fact by various researchers that the haematological reference values for the blacks are not same with the whites. Tese textbooks use purely Caucassian values without any mention of the variations as touching other races. Te White blood cell (WBC) count is placed at about 7000/µL in Guyton, the other textbooks gave the range as between 4000-11000/µL. Recent fndings revealed that people of African descent (>10-20%), have a race-specifc WBC and absolute neutrophil count (ANC) reference intervals [5]. It is also known that a locus on chromosome 1q is strongly associated with WBC (p<10-12) and individuals with the West African alleles have a mean WBC of 4.9 (SD 1.3) while those with the European alleles have a mean WBC of 7.1 (SD 1.3). Tis variant is said to explain the ∼20% of population variation in WBC [6]. In Jamaica it is reported that the presumed neutropenia reported by various health services was as a result of wrong normal reference values which are based on values drawn from Caucasian population [7]. Studies in Nigeria report signifcant diferences in normal haematological ranges compared with those of other African countries and the developed world which could be due to a number of reasons such as diferences in geographical locations, climate, dietary habits, and environmental factors or ethnic and tribal peculiarities. A recent Nigerian study places the Mean WBC count of males at 4400/µL (Ref. range 4300-4600) while that of females is 4600/µL (Ref. range 4400-4800) [8]. Despite all these evidences, our popular physiology textbooks are still non-inclusive of Africans. A common genetic blood disorder prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa is sickle cell anaemia [9]. Tis very important cause of anaemia in Nigeria is discussed very briefy in Guyton with about 165 words and about 171 words in Sembulingan. Ganong made no mention of it Innocent et al., Anat Physiol 2017, 7:1 DOI: 10.4172/2161-0940.1000250 Review Open Access Anat Physiol, an open access journal ISSN:2161-0940 Volume 7 • Issue 1 • 250 Anatomy & Physiology: Current Research A n a t o m y & P h y s i o l o g y: C u r r e n t R e s e a r c h ISSN: 2161-0940