Twelve-Lead Electrocardiography (eBook)

This is a fully revised and updated edition of the major work that teaches health professionals to utilize the 12-lead ECG in daily clinical practice. It deals with the analysis of the morphology of ECG waveforms in order to diagnose many conditions not related to rhythm, including ischemia, acute myocardial infarction, and hypertrophy of the heart muscle. Almost all other texts of morphologic interpretation for non-cardiologists rely heavily on memorizing electrocardiographic patterns. This book is unique due to its different technique, leading the reader through easily understood electrophysiologic principles, and then allowing the reader to deduce what the 12 lead electrocardiogram will look like under various circumstances.

Dr D. Bruce Foster has been teaching electrocardiography for years to various audiences including interns, residents, nurses, paramedics, and in recent years, physician's assistants. In large measure because of ACLS classes, most of them already had a pretty good understanding of dysrhythmias, so his teaching was primarily focused on the morphologic interpretation of ECGs. Absent a text on the market with which he was happy, he created his own course, and ultimately committed it to paper in the form of the first edition.

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If you are a cardiologist or have a photographic memory,you may not need Dr.Foster's new book.But,for the rest of us on the front lines of emergency care,it is a valuable resource that you will want to have by your side at work. I have had the first edition of this book by my station in the emergency department for ten years now.I use it everyday for teaching house staff and often turn to it for reference myself. For those of us without perfect memories,Dr.Foster's clinical approach is ideal. He has the knack of making the complex simple. He does not expect the reader to memorize every squiggle on the page; instead he inspires understanding by giving readers the tools they need to comprehend why ECGs look the way they do.When a resident comes to me with an ECG,I do not have to spend ten minutes delivering a confusing explanation.I just open Dr.Foster's book to the right page and hand it to the resident for review. The book is organized so that you can turn to the relevant chapter and instantly know what the differential diagnosis might be.His selection of case studies covers the vast majority of the ECGs you will be called on to read in any sort of emergent situation; anything else can wait for the cardiologist.