This brief review is meant to serve as a refresher for faculty teaching respiratory physiology to medical students. The concepts of ventilation and perfusion matching are some of the most challenging ideas to learn and teach. Some strategies to consider in teaching these concepts are, first, to build from simple to more complex by starting with a…

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common disorder of upper airway obstruction during sleep. The effects of intermittent upper airway obstruction include alveolar hypoventilation, altered arterial blood gases and acid-base status, and stimulation of the arterial chemoreceptors, which leads to frequent arousals. These arousals disturb sleep…