ECG's for the Emergency Physician 1 by Amal Mattu

Product Description

A practical learning book on the interpretation of ECGs for emergency physicians and staff. This will contain many examples of ECGs, randomly presented, each with a short history, and learning points. Two levels of difficulty make it useful at the basic and more senior levels. Three appendices will contain essential information aimed specially at emergency staff.
Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #36070 in Books
Published on: 2003-09-26
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
176 pages
Editorial Reviews

Review
"Mattu and Brady have put together 200 ECGs that illustrate virtually all electrocardiographic diagnoses. This is achieved in a self-assessment format that is instructive and interesting...I recommend these as continuing education for Emergency Medicine Specialists: no matter how well honed your skills, there is something here that will make you stop, think and learn...After you have read this book, I suspect the next person to ask you "Just check this ECG" will be overwhelmed with your knowledge!" EMJ Online

Book Info
Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore. Presents more than 200 traces for learning more complex problems presented in the emergency room. Traces depicting real-life cases are presented randomly and full clinical descriptions are located in the back of the text. Includes learning points, and subjects are divided into two levels of difficulty. Softcover.

From the Publisher
Over 200 high quality ECGs
An ideal self-educating guide for doctors taking electrocardiograms
Helpfully categorised into level of difficulty
-Intermediate level is perfect for Board Review and for teaching resident-level physicians
-Advanced level will challenge even the seasoned practitioner.
Case histories provided for all ECGs with follow up information on the patient, including mistakes that were made in the original interpretations and why
Useful appendices to assist with diagnosis
Customer Reviews

Super ECG review!
Very good for brushing up and strengthening your knowledge on ECG's. There are some (minor) mistakes on certain interpretations, though, which is probably just due to first edition.

ECGs for anyone serious about ECGs
Over the last few years, I've looked at quite a few references about ECGs. Mattu's book is certainly one of a kind. Split into two sections, each with 100 12-leads, the text begins subtly and works towards increasing difficulty and complexity of the strips. Each strip includes but a single description of the patient e.g. "46 year old male complaining of left chest pressure." The reader can then form his own impression of the patient's condition, and then refer to the end matter for a detailed explanation of the actual diagnosis.

This is certainly a teaching book. In many cases, I found myself formulating a diagnosis only to read in the back, "This is commonly misdiagnosed as [my guess]" or "This can easily be mistaken for [also my guess.]"

Initially, I was not quite confident text was worth the trouble. It does, after all, simply present strip after strip, with commentary in the back. But the text is structured in such a way that the reader can build upon knowledge and apply past failures at diagnosis to each new strip. I found myself making fewer and fewer elemental mistakes and developing a more complete picture of differential diagnosis as I progressed through the book.

Purely in terms of it's presentation of uncommon variants to common rhythms, the text is well worth the price. I'm not an emergency physician. My interest is EMS and prehospital care. Regardless, I found great utility in this text.

GREAT PRACTICE
I've worked with Dr. Amal Mattu in the ER here at University of Maryland, and let me tell you his EKG rounds are always excellent learning experiences be they at 2AM or noon. The same can be said of the book. As a resident in Internal Medicine I always want to look at more EKGs and this book is aimed at the professional who wants to see good examples of the common EKG findings, and also the rarer things such as Brugada syndrome. Each EKG is paired with a short vignette and the answers are in the back.