Ekg

[MDpride]

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please recommend EKG book that will help me in 2nd year, rotations and IM residency

 

[HopefulDoc1984]

please recommend EKG book that will help me in 2nd year, rotations and IM residency

rapid interpretation of EKGs by dubin

 

[nlax30]

Pick up any of the number of basic ECG interpretation books and the practice, practice, practice.

 

[Ryu02ETL]

rapid interpretation of EKGs by dubin

 

[xanthomondo]

rapid interpretation of EKGs by dubin

Ugh, I'd recommend NOT getting this book AT ALL COSTS

 

[tideleonheart]

rapid interpretation of ekgs by dubin

+1

 

[LadyWolverine]

practice, practice, practice.

👍

Agreed. This, and mastery of the principles of cardiac anatomy and electrophysiology, is the only way to get good at reading EKGs. More importantly is understanding what they are telling you, and applying that to an assessment and treatment plan.

 

[Perrotfish]

"The only EKG book you'll ever need'. The book is good and the 100 online practice questions it comes with help a lot.

 

[Downbytheicu]

rapid interpretation of EKGs by dubin

I lend support to this... even though Dubin is a convicted pedophile.

 

[Tiger26]

Garcia's book, however, learning EKG's 2nd year is very low yield. You should really be learning path, pharm, micro and whatever else is important for boards

 

[turkeyjerky]

I'd really recommend against Dubin. I never read it, but numerous of my classmates did and they just did not seem to get ECG's that well. I read through Garcia during our cardio block and I think it's a great book.

There are also some websites with lots of practice ecgs--wave maven is a good one.

 

[xanthomondo]

The reason I don't like Dubin is because he promotes rote memorization rather than an understanding (which is funny, because on one page he says that having an understanding is more important than memorization)

For sinus rate, he says "just memorize the numbers 300, 150, 100, etc". It's not until the next page where he tells you where those numbers come from and "don't bother understanding this as it is confusing". "this" being the fact that rate = 300/# large boxes between beats because each large box is 0.02 seconds.

Another thing (probably the worst) is that you will feel like an idiot throughout reading this entire book. And not because it will make you feel dumb, but because it is written for a third grader. There will be a picture and it will say "Blood goes into the heart into the atrium and is pumped out by the ventricles." Literally the next line it will say "Blood goes into the heart into the ______ and is pumped out by the _______." EVERY PAGE IS LIKE THIS. You'll never get a smooth read going on because of all of these stupid blanks. And somethings the blanks will make no sense, the word missing will be "very" or some really general word.

After trying to read it I ended up just copying the pictures out of the book and never looked at it again. After getting through the book I tried reading an EKG and was completely lost - because there were 12 leads. Dubin never really talks about the interpretation when you have 12 leads. He only talks about how the 12 leads are set up and then puts pictures of cars in there to draw some ridiculous analogy.

Also when you do a quiz and look for the answers, only to see the message "they're somewhere around here." He literally is just playing games with this book.

/rant

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

I'd really recommend against Dubin. I never read it, but numerous of my classmates did and they just did not seem to get ECG's that well. I read through Garcia during our cardio block and I think it's a great book.

There are also some websites with lots of practice ecgs--wave maven is a good one.

I'll put in another vote for Garcia. The books has a ton of practice strips, and I like the fact that it's almost like 3 books in 1 (a lot of the chapters have different difficulty levels that you can read -- start with basic, move to advanced, then to expert.)

Dubin was recommended by my school, but I took a look at one of my classmate's copies, and it looked horrible to me.

 

[hawkwing]

Dubin is awful and its beyond me how anyone could learn anything from his book. I cast another vote for Garcia. Its a great book.

 

[nlax30]

I also used the Garcia book and really liked it, especially the fact that it has a lot of practice strips. It basically covers a few concepts and then hits you with a bunch of example strips to read.

 

[Rendar5]

Thaler is my personal favorite, Garcia is a fantastic book nonetheless

At all costs, DO NOT GET DUBIN. The book makes u feel like u can read an EKG, makes you feel like your'e going with the crowd since so many ppl learn by it, and sure, u can tell what the rate is easily by his method. But you won't understand a thing that's going on at any intermediate lvl of comprehension, you won't get enough practice, and you won't be able to get a feel for what's concerning v. what looks abnormal and is really not concerning. Those docs that use it and are good at EKGs? They got there by practice.

And yes, I concur with the sentiment that you should not worry aobut EKG interpretation as a 2nd year. What shows up on the boards is basic basic basic concepts.

 

[motoo]

as someone who bought and tried to read dubin, I would avoid it. It's really tough to read and you quickly get annoyed by him repeating stuff.

for quick and dirty with decent level of understanding, use thaler's "everything you need to know about EKGs." my school uses this and it works pretty well for a 2nd year student (which is when we used it).

I just recently picked up the garcia book. looks like a keeper because it has three levels of understanding so it'll come in handy as a resident/attending too. Lots of practice strips as well. BUT it requires some time investment though since it's pretty long