Electrocardiogram

We started off the cardiovascular block with the electrical activity of the heart. EKGs are amazing diagnostic tools. They are also very fun to read. While at first, the twelve-lead EKG looks pretty intimidating, after a while, you get pretty quick at determining rate, rhythm, axis, etc. I was first introduced to EKGs in research a few years ago: we took them on mice. Since then, I've grown quite fond of the little P waves and QRS complexes and ST elevations. You can really tell a lot about a patient from simply looking at the EKG. We had a physiology lab which was quite fun in which we took an EKG on a student volunteer. We also had some small group sessions correlating EKGs to clinical diagnoses.