By its very nature, pharmacology is a challenging interdisciplinary subject that requires understanding concepts from a wide variety of the natural and applied sciences to predict drug action. For this reason, authors Holland, Adams, and Brice have organized Core Concepts in Pharmacology according to body systems and diseases, placing drugs in the context of their therapeutic use. This gives students easier access to the prerequisite anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, and pharmacology organized in the same chapter where the drugs are discussed.

The Fifth Edition continues its prototype approach of introducing, in detail, the one or two most representative drugs in each class. It also maintains a strong emphasis on safe, effective nursing care with a new chapter on preventing medication errors, features new Drug Focus boxes to cover emerging drugs, and includes many more new and updated features.