EKG Tutorial

Electrocardiography

An on-line tutorial in Lead II ECG interpretation

Aaron Segal, EMT-P

You are the visitor since April 18, 1997!

Whether it was St. Elsewhere, Chicago Hope, Rescue 911, or E.R., surely you've watched in awe as the physicians frantically stumbled over their dying patient. The lifeless body wasn't very exciting, and the camera always seemed to find it's way to the ECG machine... You stared at the green phosporescent dot as it bounced up and down while syringes flew in the background. "V-Fib! Get the paddles!" Crushing the patients chest in a glorious effort to save his life, the physicians watched the monitor carefully for feedback.

After following my tutorial, you will be able to watch the monitor and keep up with next week's "E.R" as well as any cardiologist. (You may not spot as many mistakes as the Dr., but I digress)

ECG Interpretation for Dummies

This tutorial begins with a general overview of cardiac physiology and a brief discussion of how the ECG works. In the interest of saving space, I will assume that the reader has some familiarity with cardiac physiology. Don't worry, this stuff is simple!

We will use the following outline:

• Introduction to the heart
• Action potentials and cardiac contraction
• How the ECG measures activity
• Sinus rhythms
• Atrial rhythms
• AV blocks
• Junctional rhythms
• Ventricular rhythms

TheMedStud, MyMedStud, and FreeMedStud (c) 2002 by Aaron Segal
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