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Laddergrams: A Great Way to Teach Conduction Concepts in Dysrhythmias

Submitted by Dawn on Mon, 01/30/2012 - 13:27

Once your students have mastered the basic rhythms and their criteria, many of them will want to try more challenging rhythms.  Non-conducted premature beats, retrograde conduction, AV blocks, and concealed conduction can be easily explained using LADDERGRAMS.  A laddergram is a diagram of a rhythm strip showing the timing and conduction of the electrical impulses.  There is a line drawn for the atrial activity, one for ventricular activity, and one for AV activity.  Blocks and retrograde conduction can be easily shown

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Saving Money On Learning Resources

Submitted by Dawn on Wed, 01/25/2012 - 16:01

I love books.  I have hundreds of books on my shelves - many of them are ECG books (surprise!)

Sometimes, though, books are too expensive, too heavy to carry, and become outdated too quickly. This is especially a problem for students.  These days, we have lots of alternatives.

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The Mysterious Human Heart, PBS

Submitted by Dawn on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 21:29

I was stumbling around on Stumbleupon.com, when I ran across this, and had to share.  If you haven't seen the PBS series, The Mysterious Human Heart, you should go have a look at the website they created for us.  There are three episodes of the program, featuring human stories, beautiful animations, and excellent explanations of modern science for the beginning student or lay person.

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Finding ECGs To Use For Classes

Submitted by Dawn on Mon, 01/09/2012 - 21:29

Plain and Simple
At the Guru, our goal is to provide you with the materials you need to present your classes.  Most of the ECGs on the site are from my personal collection, which contains both "typical" ECGs and unusual or very interesting ones.  As this is still a new site, I am trying to add ECGs that are good-quality examples of common ECG presentations.  If there is an ECG you need for your collection, let us know.

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So, How Do I Get Started Teaching ECG?

Submitted by Dawn on Sun, 01/01/2012 - 21:09

Due to popular demand, I am now putting together a live 12-Lead ECG Instructors' Course.  I am hoping to have it finished soon, because lately I have become more and more interested helping other people become instructors.  That's exactly why I started this website. 
So, how do you become an ECG instructor?  I'm sure there are lots of ways - some intentional and some not!  So, since I am not an expert on how ALL ECG instructors come to be, I will tell you what I have learned from personal experience. 
 

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The Problem of Unprepared Students In a Basic ECG Class

Submitted by Dawn on Wed, 12/28/2011 - 11:59

Do you teach basic ECG to beginners?  
Do you sometimes find that your students come from widely different backgrounds, with completely different learning needs?   I ran into this problem a few years ago when teaching a class called "Basic ECG For Non-Nurses" at a local college.  This course was traditionally a thirty-hour series of classes lasting over several weeks.  The intention was to prepare monitor techs and to give student EMTs and nurses a more in-depth exposure to rate and rhythm monitoring than they were getting in their regular course work.

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Refresh and Renew

Submitted by Dawn on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 22:34

Right now, your main thoughts are probably not about your upcoming ECG classes.  This is a time of holidays, friends, family, and leisure - time for fun!   If you work in an academic setting, you might even have a nice, long break right now.  Enjoy!  We are much better teachers if we are happy, relaxed and upbeat. (Not always easy to accomplish these days.)

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Seven Reasons To Love The Book: 12-Lead ECG: The Art of Interpretation

Submitted by Dawn on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 06:18

This wonderful book by Dr. Tomas B. Garcia, MD, FACEP and Neil E. Holtz, BS, EMT-P has been in my book bag for so long, it is dogearred and worn.  But, I would never part with it. If you aren't already familiar with 12-Lead ECG: The Art of Interpretation, I urge you to take a look. I have no financial interest in the book, it truly is my favorite!  So here are the
Seven Reasons To Love "12-Lead ECG: The Art of Interpretation":

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Do you teach an introductory 12-Lead course? Here's help.

Submitted by Dawn on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 14:15

It can be quite a challenge to teach 12-lead ECG when your students have never had a 12-lead class before, or when they are very rusty.  There is so much ground to cover!  Over the years, I have learned (the hard way) that most students cannot retain well when bombarded with a subject for a whole day, especially on several consecutive days.  For years, I taught an 8-hour 12-lead review course.  The first part of the day was anatomy, lead concepts, and STEMI.  After lunch, we covered bundle branch blocks and other misc.

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ECG Factoids

Submitted by Dawn on Mon, 12/12/2011 - 19:30

When I post 12-Lead ECGs and ECG rhythm strips to this site, I try to provide helpful comments for teachers. I don't try to completely discuss all the ramifications of each ECG. A lot of these comments involve little "factoids" that are helpful for our students. Examples: on nearly all ECGs, the channels (or strips of ECG tracing) are run simultaneously. That means that, from left to right, the strip represents a timeline. But, the strips below show the same 10 seconds in time. This is VERY helpful in so many ways.

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