Chevron Left
Back to Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us by University of Pennsylvania

4.8
stars
6,167 ratings

About the Course

The vital signs – heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, respiration rate, and pain – communicate important information about the physiological status of the human body. In this six-part course we explore the anatomy and physiology underlying the vital signs so that you will develop a systematic, integrated understanding of how the body functions. Relevant body systems are reviewed including cardiovascular and respiratory, followed by explanations of how the function of these systems affects vital signs. We discuss normal ranges, normal variants, and the mechanisms that underlie changes in the objective measurement of vital signs. The course also includes demonstrations of appropriate techniques for measuring vital signs in yourself and others. The course is designed for a broad, general audience but will be particularly interesting for individuals working in healthcare, those considering a career as a healthcare professional, lay caregivers, those with an interest in personal health and fitness, or anyone who simply wants to understand how the body functions....

Top reviews

BR

Sep 29, 2018

Yes, it is very useful to me and I will suggest to my friends to take this course. My sincere Thanks to Connie B. Scanga, PhD, she taken the all lecture clearly and her lecture was easy to understand.

AB

Jun 29, 2017

I really enjoyed to the professor and the idea of learning the material with her students. It made me feel as if I was in the classroom learning with them. She broke down the material in a great way.

Filter by:

101 - 125 of 1,571 Reviews for Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us

By Amir S

Jun 18, 2020

I am very very thankful to Dr. Scanga, who is a very humble, dedicated, and outstanding Professor. She explained the Vital signs mechanism/ concept in a very precisely, in an understanding manner. She is the asset of the University.

I also would like to thank to the whole Coursera team, who recorded & organized the course & make it very interesting.

Regards

Muhammad Amir Mustufa

By Brita F

Dec 12, 2016

Thanks to Professor Scanga and her team for this excellent course on vital signs. The lectures are very well presented and easy to follow even for a layman. I can only recommend this course to anybody interested in learning about vital signs. I particularly enjoyed watching the parts in the simulation lab as they showed how to apply the lecture contents in a clinical setting.

By Antony M

Sep 17, 2018

Dr. Scanga's lectures were delivered with deliberation, naturalness, and friendliness..

Two experts were also inducted bringing in variety and different outlook. It was a fascinating journey and the students in her class looked really earnest and motivated. Thanks a lot for giving me and many others the opportunity of listening to such eminent teachers from Penn.

A G Maxwell

By Prasad B D

Apr 1, 2018

It is truly an exceptional course feeding with all the relevant material to know about what our body is telling us during day to day activities.

I highly appreciate the Professor for sharing the knowledge and also for timely testing the knowledge that we gained through individual sessions.

Thanks coursera for providing us such a platform of enhancing learning abilities.

By Jen D

May 19, 2020

Excellent way of presenting the material and the professor is phenomenal! Even though I've been working in the health care field for some time now and come across most of the material, I still found the knowledge to be insightful. I have a better understanding of these concepts after taking this course. Highly recommended and can easily be done in less than 6 weeks.

By Danielle B

Aug 20, 2017

I loved this course!! Dr. Scanga is an incredible teacher; the guest teachers featured throughout this course are all very knowledgeable and made me feel like I was truly auditing a class at UPenn. What a phenomenal nursing program -- and even more incredible to be a fly on the wall and learn about how our bodies function and communicate to us. Highly recommend!!

By Rachel S

May 30, 2020

I absolutely loved this class. Dr. Scanga is such an excellent instructor and so kind and encouraging. I loved the video format; everything was so well-done and high quality that I felt like I was really sitting in on the lectures. I truly learned so much and really enjoyed the journey. I'm a little sad that it's over. Thank you for making this course available!

By Scherine C

Mar 1, 2018

Video lectures were completed in a classroom or lab setting with regular in-video MCQs which enhanced the feeling of being a classroom attendant. The interactive component will help you to stay focused and to truly evaluate whether you've understood the content being discussed. I am sure you'll likely find the course to be insightful and interesting as I have.

By calvin m a

Jul 27, 2017

I just want to thank the coursera team for the opportunity they have given us to learn and remind ourselves on basic elements of medicine that we need to recognize in our day today living .Thanks to the tutors and the entire group who made it possible for the learning to be modulated in search a simple and easy way to understand..Big ups...

Dr. Calvin M. Achieng

By Linda

Jul 12, 2020

Excellent Course. Very clear explanations. Lovely class setting, very helpful hand-out, interesting for everybody until the end, very challenging but there is a nice balance between theory and practice. I learned a lot. Excellent teaching of Dr. C. Scanga. Please more of such classes! It would have been nice to have an overall test at the end or an assignment.

By Andrea K W

Apr 6, 2020

First MOOC course I have taken - and I am flashed. It was so informative with interesting content, many facts. All in one more than I expected. The atmophere of the course is very friendly and the instructors speak very clear and slowly. The relevant information is being repeated several times, so you really get to the point. Perfect! Thanks for the good time!

By AY2021 S 2

Sep 15, 2023

the lectures were in a real classroom setting, really interactive. There were notes and in-video quizzes which could be downloaded beforehand. This really aid in making the learning more efficient, and you can pay more attention to the lectures rather than focusing on taking down notes. Truly enjoyed this course and it was really very organised. Thank you

By Monica D

Sep 12, 2020

In the midst of these crazy times learning a bit about how the body works was fascinating and left me curious and eager to find out more. I loved the classroom format, the lab, the interviews and the interaction with the students. A big thank you to Dr. Scanga, the students and everybody who contributed to making this course available to so many of us.

By Fabiola R

Jul 8, 2023

I'm deeply in loved of the professor Connie Scanga, she's amazing. Her classes were so inspiring and stimulating, I wanna be able to teach like her and cauptived my students like she did it with me. I learned so much and I'm so gratefull with the way all the material provided, because it was so much easier to studied. Thank you so much for everything.

By Arinze E

Mar 21, 2022

Excellent Course!

Excellent in-depth review/overview of vital organs function.

The course was excellently taught with detailed and keen insight into the proper functioning of the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, and nervous system, thus giving the student the beginning of a firm foundation in the Medical Sciences.

Thank You, Dr. Scanga.

By Toni S

May 27, 2020

Really good course if you enjoy learning about human anatomy or are interested in the kinds of things a doctor assesses you for! I found the material easy to learn and was able to watch all of the videos on 2x speed, which cut down the time commitment. The in-video quiz questions are available for you to study and I felt well prepared for the quizzes.

By Wilma J v V

May 2, 2020

For somebody who left school 25 years ago and didn't even have biology as a subject back then, I found this course fascinating yet practical. Thank you to Prof Scanga who really managed to convey intimidating concepts in a measured and very easy-to-follow manner.

Thank you for keeping my mind occupied during our strict lockdown here in South Africa! :)

By Andrea K

Jun 27, 2021

I loved it! The teaching methods used were very effective. I loved the classroom atmosphere and the amount of questions the teacher kept asking. I just wish there was a recap quiz of the entire course. Other than that, this course really teaches what it describes. I'm very clear on all my concepts now. Loved the Simulation lab demos and Case Studies.

By Alan L

Mar 12, 2020

This course was awesome and easy to follow. They had nice demos that showed how healthcare providers check patients' vital signs and also why they do it. This course was amazing, and the instructor was neither too fast nor too slow and made it really easy to follow the course. Recommend for anybody to better understand their own body and vital signs.

By Suvarna b

May 24, 2020

The content of this course is extremely good. In addition to the content, the strength of the course is the teaching methods by Professor Connie B. Scanga, PhD. This course has helped me a lot in understanding the Vital signs and related information. I genuinely thank Professor Connie B. Scanga for making this entire course journey simpler for me.

By Miguel Á Q S

Mar 4, 2018

I'm a second year medicine student. I haven't taken physiology yet, so I found the course quite interesting. It had enough information to give new pointers, and the anatomy sections were well explained, easy to follow, and an excellent review for me. I have to say that I really enjoyed Prof. Connie's lectures, as I think she was quite clear.

By Ahmed Z

Oct 15, 2017

Dr Connie I can't be more grateful and blessed with this course and having your class you are one of the rarest professors who can give the complicated information in the simplest way I really interested every single moment in this course it was very informative and beneficial thank you and thaks for coursera to give me such an experience.

By Deleted A

Jan 5, 2018

The only Biology lectures that I ever understood. I hated biology subject as a kid in school, and I know now why some of my friends find it so interesting. Thanks to Dr. Connie Scanga for explaining those complex concepts so elaborately. A must-do course for people like me who are in no-way related to medical field. Thanks Dr. Scanga.

By David S

Jun 28, 2016

Great course. I took it for fun rather than for career purposes and thought it was terrific. This was my first Coursera course and I was impressed by the logistics and organization. The professor, Dr. Scanga, was extremely knowledgeable and a very effective presenter of complex topics. The quizzes were appropriately challenging.

By Natalia S

May 3, 2020

Professor Connie Scanga is an amazing professional and she conducts the course perfectly, triggering our desire to learn more and more about how the body works. I'm so grateful for this opportunity, for be possible to me to learn a lot of things with great professionals through a very well designed course. Thank you so much!