The cardio-genre of the art of medicine

Many people draw paralel between medicine with art.

"Medicine is an art." That's what my clinical mentor told us, "you are now learning not only medicine, but also the greatest art of human inteligence"

Recently, without much realizing, I found myself drown in one of the medicine art -- the music of heart. Here, I give you electrocardiogram (ECG / EKG).

Before I come to the chapter of ECG, the name of ECG/EKG was not stranger to me. Well, you can hear the word being mentioned every now and then in medical dramas. Most situation would be...

"v-tach...no! v-fib! Charge pedal to 200! ... clear! (everyone step away from the bed, and the doc is shocking the patient)"

or...

"asystole...push another gram of epi! Now, charge pedal to 200...clear!"

so, ECG was not a stranger...

But, the first time when I was staring on the P, QRS, and T waves...they are strangers. I though it's easier to be intepreted like other lab results...but, hell! It's like some foreign / outerspace language to me!

So, I went to librabry, trying to search for a book called "ECG made easy"... but there's a name of a book in the cardio shelf that caught my attention "The only ECG book you would ever need". Because of the boasting and ego of the name, I chose it.

"By the end of this book, you will be able to read ECG just like how the musician read the notes..."

Wow! That was...the book is making a promise!

And now, on 30% of the book, I found myself fonding in reading the ECG... I'm like, kinda appreciating how the ECG is presented in this way... it's like learning a new language, a new art... although I'm still being far from intepreting ECG in glanace, but I hope that one day, I can reach the standard of telling what's wrong with the ECG with only one glance...it's cool!

If medicine is an art, then ECG would be the music of the art, which specifically, in the cardio-genre. I like it! =)