The Calgary Guide to Understanding Disease (I.e. The Calgary Guide) 

A student-authored, faculty-reviewed self-study resource, explaining the pathophysiology behind clinical presentations of disease. Click on the logo to be directed to The Calgary Guide website.

Why?

• During lectures, I often ask myself: "why, in simple terms, does a disease present clinically the way it does?" "Why does a disease have its typical complications?"
•  Medical school lectures, textbooks, and other resources often do not present reasons/mechanisms to explain why diseases manifest as they do.
• If explanations are provided, the level of detail is usually beyond that of pre-clerkship medicine.
• To students trying to actually learn and understand diseases instead of memorizing facts about them, not relating pathophysiology with the clinical aspects of each disease prevents us from acheiving the true understanding we need to be solid clinicians.
• I believe that there is a better way.
• Explaining how the signs and symptoms of diseases come about can be achieved in a simple, concise, yet comprehensive way. It need not be frustratingly detailed, and need not be time consuming.

How:

• I want to help medical students truly understand why diseases present the way they do, in as concise and comprehensive a way as possible.
• I've created The Calgary Guide to serve as a first-line resource for pre-clerkship (1st and 2nd year) medical students in their self-directed studies.
• Instead of providing students with information to memorize and regurgitate, The Calgary Guide guides students through logical mental reasoning pathways to help with true understanding of individual diseases.

What:

• The Calgary Guide presents simple, clear explanations of why diseases happen the way they do, why their complications come about, and why they have their classic set of risk factors.
• Diseases are explained in simple flow-charts and diagrams, providing a straightforward, easy-to-follow way to learn the common and deadly diseases taught in medical school
• Faculty members from the University of Calgary review all material to ensure the accuracy of the information presented.
• Click on the above image to see what The Calgary Guide is all about!
• The Calgary Guide will be subject to continuous expansion, improvement, and peer-review to ensure the book's accuracy and to further streamline it's structure/formatting, making it better year after year.
• If you are a medical student, a resident, or a physician passionate about medical education, interested in this initiative, and able to dedicate time to improving the Calgary Guide, I'd love to work with you. Contact me.

Aug 8-15, 2019: The University of Calgary's "The Calgary Guide" Server was temporarily down because of a suspected virus attacking the server. Calgary's IT department managed to find a fix. Thank you for your patience as we resolved this problem. 

In case of future website outages, please find the Hematology and Gastroenterology slides as follows:

Gastroenterology:

• Acute Abdominal Pain (Appendicitis, diverticulitis, cholecystitis, pancreatitis, bowel obstruction, perforated bowel, small bowel infarction)
• Diarrhea - small bowel
• Diarrhea - large bowel
• Gall Bladder Disorders (Cholestasis, Cholelithiasis)
• Stigmata of Liver Disease, Cirrhosis
• Wilson's disease, A1AT deficiency 
• Hereditary Hemochromatosis
• Viral hepatitis, HBV Serology
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Crohn's, Colitis)
• Lower GI Bleeds (Diverticulitis, angiodysplasia)
• Upper GI Bleeds (Etiologies, peptic ulcer disease)

Hematology:

• Suspected DVT - Virchow's Triad
• Pulmonary Embolism - signs/symptoms, complications
• Leukemias - ALL, AML, CLL, CML, features of abnormal lymph nodes
• Microcytic Anemias (iron deficiency anemia, alpha and beta Thalassemia)
• Normocytic Anemias (Anemia of chronic disease, hemolytic anemia)
• Polycythemia (Polycythemia vera, secondary polycythemia)
• Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC)
• Hemophilia
• vWF Deficiency
• Vitamin K Deficiency
• Folate Deficiency
• Vit B12 deficiency
• Multiple Myeloma

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