To our sisters and brothers who are medical and nursing educators from all around the globe;
You are the courageous ones who teach in this day when students can find instant answers from keyboard strokes or tablet swipes;
You are the ones who are expected to be experts in the sciences, the clinical, the ethics, and the therapeutics;
Most of all, you are the penetrating light that inspires the mind and soul of our next generation of clinicians.
May our Creator continue to sustain you with passion and insight.
Eugene C. Toy &
Allison L. Toy
The concept for these Teaching Cases arose from McGraw Hill’s extensive research and focus group discussions held around the country. We appreciate all of those tireless editors and marketing individuals whose wisdom and knowledge form the foundation of this product. We are greatly indebted to Bob Boehringer, our editor, who had the vision and perseverance to lead this complex project, and to Jeff Herzich who volunteered to help to push us through from the “red zone” to the goal line. We are also grateful to Christina Thomas for her wonderful editing and for doggedly chasing after permissions, and Leah Carton for organizing and coordinating the hundreds of authors and reviewers in record time. Armen Ovsepyan and Jason McAlexander have been indispensable in coordinating and producing the artwork.
We cherish the ever-organized and precise Harleen Chopra, project manager, whose expertise and talent we greatly value; she has worked on our prior books and she keeps us focused, and nurtures each of our manuscript from thoughts to print to XML and finally to the digital product. We cannot say enough about Aditya Agarkar and Sugumar Nagarajan of Snapwiz, who magically bring the printed page into digital life.
At the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, I (Eugene) appreciate the support from my chairman Dr. Sean Blackwell, who is an amazing leader with a brilliant intellect, an unparalleled work ethic, and a generous heart that inspires beyond our department; and Dr. Patricia Butler who as Vice Chair for Educational Programs of our school exemplifies all that is excellent in medical education.
I am so blessed to have the support of an extraordinary author team. Allison knows exactly how to format the manuscripts into the Teaching Case format, and has that intuitive sense of how to weave in the perfect material whether it be a science, ethics, statistics, or clinical. My wife Terri is the ever-organized project manager keeping up with the various cases with a white board, and taking on whatever needs to be done to meet deadlines. I am indebted to my daughter Christina and my medical student Ally Limmer, who are both excellent copy editors, proof readers, and indispensable. I continue to be amazed by my talented son Andy, who composed and recorded the introduction music for our case files videos, which he named “Mithril’s eye.” I am appreciative of my son Michael for offering his advice on website design and navigation. Most of all, I am grateful for the hundreds of excellent authors and peer reviewers who worked under tight deadlines, and a template they had never seen before. Their brilliant work is what makes our cases possible.
I am grateful to my parents Chuck and Grace Toy who taught me the importance of hard work, attention to detail, and a love for education. Allison would like to acknowledge the contribution of the Case Files Mascot, her intelligent feline Mithril, who continues to inspire from “cat heaven”. Most of all, I appreciate my loving wife, Terri, and my four wonderful children, Andy and his wife Anna, Michael, Allison, and Christina and her husband Andy, for their patience, support and understanding.
Eugene C. Toy &
Allison L. Toy
