IMO, really what they are trying to get you to understand is pathophysiology (obviously both physiology and pathology and how they related to disease mechanism). Learning physiology (or "normal") is a necessity if you're going to learn any pathology (or "abnormal"). Conventionally, almost all allopathic schools' first years were learning the "normal" and second year learning the "abnormal" of all systems (with other general principles like pharmacology, microbiology, etc. thrown in somewhere). It seems like you're in a curriculum like this, so understandably you don't know squat about pathology. However, I guarantee that some pathology was taught to you in physiology. For example, when learning the physiology of heart sounds, you must have talked about paradoxical splitting and murmurs which obviously are not physiological but pathological (for the most part). But this is in physiology to: 1. engrain the concepts of the dynamics of heart valves and pressures and 2. introduce a little pathology so you'll recognize a little when you learn more about it. Now, obviously, there's more to that and that's what your second year will be about. In short, there's no way to truly learn physiology or pathology in isolation, they are intermingled.
However, the (now-not-so-new) trend of having a curriculum that is integrated by organ system is popular. That is you do cardiovascular in some number of weeks learning everything about the cardiovascular system including physiology, anatomy, pathology, etc. But even there, the draw back is you cannot learn organ systems in isolation. That is--to really learn, for example, cardiovascular, you NEED to know some details about the lungs and kidneys (at least). And if you're curriculum hasn't had you learn those yet, you're kind of in the same position you're in now (instead of not knowing any pathology, you don't know any kidney stuff except disparate things when you learn about CV or vice versa--depending which came first in the curriculum).
Post was longer than intended, but anyway those are my thoughts. You'll likely have better understanding and relationship with reading FA as you go through second year (especially now you know all of the "normal").
FS
