Product Description

This highly respected and famous book is a simple, readable guide to the accurate identification and interpretation of abnormal electrocardiogram (ECG) patterns, written for medical students, nurses and junior doctors. The emphasis throughout is on the straightforward practical application of the ECG. Generations of medical and health care staff have benefited from its clear-cut approach to this important investigation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2673 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-11
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Review
"The ECG Made Easy has for some time been the pocket reference for junior doctors... invaluable in a clinical setting."Nursing Standard
godsend to thousands of practising physicians and surgeons who have never mastered the ECG, but always felt they should have done."European Medical Journal
fact that 'The ECG Made Easy' is now in its sixth edition must be testament to the enduring popularity of this book. It's an easy step-by-step readable guide to how to interpret ECGs." "Medical Student," MAD Magazine (Medics and Dentists at Barts and The London), April 2003
good starter, but you may need some help. One of the most popular introductory texts on this subject. All the basic concepts for understanding this topic are included, though there could be more emphasis on possible areas of confusion; such as the different between leads and wires . This book also suffers from only being pocket sized and having pocket sized tracings, and on pages that depict limb and chest leads the layout could be improved to show that they are separate groups. For a newcomer to this subject you may not find it all that easy, as the explanations may need some practical demonstrations from an accomplished teacher with topics such as the cardiac axis. However this book does avoid the jargon and physiology that can be off putting in most other introductory texts. If this book leaves you with further questions, you would probably also need and indeed benefit from the author s two other titles The ECG in Practice and 100 ECG Problems . This would enable you to improve your skills of interpretation, and the three titles bought over time would provide an adequate inexpensive reference shelf for most health careworkers. The ECG is never easy to understand for beginners, but this book does at least try."Review on Amazon.co.uk

Customer Reviews

A good start to interpreting ECGs
This is the book that's generally recommended to Leeds students who are baffled by the ECG and the squiggles on the page. This pocket sized book takes relatively little time to read through, and guides you though the very basics of interpretation from the cardiac axis to arrythmias and ischemic changes.

However, you will have to look elsewhere when confronted with management of the conditions described within. For example, you'll be able to interpret the ECG of atrial fibrillation, but the book won't tell you why this is significant, or your subsequent management of the condition (granted a good medical textbook will give you this information, but I'd have preferred to have the decisions section described alongside the various interpretation of arrthmias.

Gripes aside, 'ECG Made Easy' meets its main aims quite comfortably- a few reads, and at the very least, you'll approach ECGs in a logical, systematic manner. The rest comes with practice on the wards.

A good starter, but you may need some help.
One of the most popular introductory texts on this subject. All the basic concepts for understanding this topic are included, though there could be more emphasis on possible areas of confusion; such as the difference between 'leads' and 'wires'. This book also suffers from only being pocket sized and having pocket sized tracings, and on pages that depict limb and chest leads the layout could be improved to show that they are separate groups. For a newcomer to this subject you may not find it all that easy, as the explanations may need some practical demonstrations from an accomplished teacher with topics such as the cardiac axis. However this book does avoid the jargon and physiology that can be off putting in most other introductory texts. If this book leaves you with further questions, you would probably also need and indeed benefit from the author's two other titles 'The ECG in practice' and '100 ECG problems'. This would enable you to improve your skills of interpretation, and the three titles bought over time would provide an adequate inexpensive reference shelf for most health care workers. The ECG is never easy to understand for beginners, but this book does at least try.

Not brilliant but useful intro to ECGs
Interpreting ECGs is difficult, at least at the start, for most medical students. This book doesn't quite make ECGs easy but it does help to provide a reasonable introduction into how to begin understanding what the little lines and squiggles mean.

It starts off with basic info on the rate, rhythm and axis of ECGs then has a chapter on each of the main arrhythmias you'll come across. Some of the very basics in chapter one are not described very well (in particular, the cardiac axis paragraphs), occasionally lacking clarity and depth but they do use plenty of pictures to demonstrate what they are explaining to you and after a couple of reads you will begin to see what they are getting at.

Others have commented that the book could do with some more clinical details but I disagree - you should have a medical text book containing a section on cardiology already. I see it as a bonus that this pocket-sized book limits itself to the difficult enough topic of interpreting ECGs.

Lastly, there are 10 practice ECGs at the end for you to test yourseslf on, with answers explained fully.

Overall, I found it to be a useful book that can give you a reasonable introduction as to how to start reading, interpreting and presenting ECGs to your colleagues. It was great for last minute cramming before OSCE-type exams (at GKT anyway!), and should be good for anyone who doesn't have a kindly cardiologist who wants to teach you how to read them him/herself!