Student trying to learn ekgs

[Laceydeleto]

I know there’s a lot of artifact. I am struggling learning ekgs. When I send my ekg to the hospital while working as an emt, I print a copy and try to read it myself afterwards. What do you see here?

 

[luke_31]

Honestly it’s a ton of artifact so getting a good read on that isn’t going to be easy and up to me I’d get another strip that is clearer if possible.

 

[Laceydeleto]

Honestly it’s a ton of artifact so getting a good read on that isn’t going to be easy and up to me I’d get another strip that is clearer if possible.

Any tips for getting a better read when the patient is having a hard time breathing?

 

[E tank]

Looks like a fib at first glance but no ekg is read independent of physical exam. So a finger on the pulse while looking at the monitor (if the pulse ox is full of artifact too), thinking about what meds the patient is on to correlate what you're seeing on the monitor (blood thinners, CCB's etc or nothing if this is new onset). Try to put every rhythm you're looking at in the context of history and physical and present illness.

 

[Laceydeleto]

Looks like a fib at first glance but no ekg is read independent of physical exam. So a finger on the pulse while looking at the monitor (if the pulse ox is full of artifact too), thinking about what meds the patient is on to correlate what you're seeing on the monitor (blood thinners, CCB's etc or nothing if this is new onset). Try to put every rhythm you're looking at in the context of history and physical and present illness.

That’s a good tip that I forgot about. I definitely could have matched his pulse up to it. I’m highly new to reading them. He sure made it hard to get any history. The only thing I got out of him was that he had triple bypass surgery 20 years ago. I assume he’s on some sort of heart meds but he would not confirm. All he said was “ it would be easier to tell you what I’m not on”

 

[Jon]

I'm going to echo the other comments - there's a ton of artifact and these really aren't good tracings. Best thing to do right now is to work to get a better tracing when you obtain an ECG. Here's a great video talking about that.

Side note @TomB is an inactive forum member. If you look through his past posts, he's got a lot of good material.

Two other technique things - make sure the electrodes aren't dry (this is why you shouldn't pre-load electrodes), and do skin prep. Sometimes it's as simple as wiping the skin with a towel to get perspiration off the skin and ensure good electrode contact.


In short - poor tracing makes it hard for anyone to actually interpret the EKG. Once you improve that, the actual EKG interpretation is the next step.

 

[Laceydeleto]

I'm going to echo the other comments - there's a ton of artifact and these really aren't good tracings. Best thing to do right now is to work to get a better tracing when you obtain an ECG. Here's a great video talking about that.

Side note @TomB is an inactive forum member. If you look through his past posts, he's got a lot of good material.

Two other technique things - make sure the electrodes aren't dry (this is why you shouldn't pre-load electrodes), and do skin prep. Sometimes it's as simple as wiping the skin with a towel to get perspiration off the skin and ensure good electrode contact.


In short - poor tracing makes it hard for anyone to actually interpret the EKG. Once you improve that, the actual EKG interpretation is the next step.

Thank you for the tips. I appreciate it! We haven’t gone super far into it, but I’m trying to soak in as much information as possible because I’ve had a lot of people say they struggled to learn it. I will def be look through that material!