Essentials of Bedside Cardiology - (Contemporary Cardiology) by Jules Constant (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Essentials of Bedside Cardiology, Second Edition, like the first edition, is designed for those who wish to balance technological advances with increased personal skill in history taking and physical examination. It is important to teach physicians that all technologies now in use for diagnosing cardiovascular disorders, such as echocardiography, can have false positive and false negative results. It is not always wise to rely on these technologies alone; indeed, they may not even be available in some settings. Even when the full panoply of up-to-date techniques is at the physician's disposal, the patient may not be a good candidate for an echocardiogram, or the technician or reader may not be well qualified, or the equipment itself may be substandard. Technology must be combined with physical examination to decide what is true and what is false. The practice of expert history taking and physical examination returns the physician to the actual patient, where the physician can feel like a "real doctor" rather than a mere interpreter of laboratory data. Essentials of Bedside Cardiology, Second Edition, strives to teach and not simply to tell the facts, relying on three basic methods derived from the psychology of teaching and learning: 1. Explain the facts. 2. Use a question and answer format-the Socratic method. 3. Provide tricks or mnemonics to help the reader remember the facts.

From the Back Cover

Because medical technologies for diagnosing cardiovascular disorders, such as echocardiography, can occasionally prove mistaken or misleading, many physicians know that it is best not to rely solely on their results. In this significantly enhanced second edition of his classic work, Essentials of Bedside Cardiology With a Complete Course in Heart Sounds and Murmurs on CD, Second Edition, Jules Constant, MD, offers an alternative to this problem by helping the physician to perfect the fine art of history-taking and physical examination. Moving beyond total reliance on laboratory data to the expert evaluation of personal patient data, Dr. Constant summarizes forty years of clinical experience with a proven battery of time-tested questions designed to elicit the crucial nuances of cardiac-related symptoms, and then provides a complete differential diagnosis for each demonstrated symptom. His method includes numerous practical tips for obtaining cardiac clues from physical appearance, measuring arterial and jugular pulses and pressures, and using a stethoscope. The core of the book is an extensive discussion of the art and science of diagramming and grading heart sounds and murmurs, ranging from S1 through S4 to ejection, systolic regurgitant, diastolic, and abdominal murmurs. An invaluable, stand-alone compact disc offering a seventy-minute course in auscultation, complete with heartsounds taken from actual patients over the course of forty years, clearly illustrates all the sounds and murmurs discussed.
Successfully demonstrating how to balance modern technology with increased personal skill in history-taking and physical examination, Essentials of Bedside Cardiology With a Complete Course in Heart Sounds and Murmurs on CD, Second Edition, offers all physicians, novice and practiced alike, a rigorous and well-proven methodology for precisely diagnosing and treating the widest range of cardiac patients today.

Review Quotes

"This is a thoughtful book, particularly strong on the correct physiological explanation of physical signs. I have always found Jules Constant's book to be my first (and only) reference regarding physical signs, and it is a great pleasure to see this updated version. Given the breadth of coverage it is surprisingly short and readable, and highly recommended." -Cardiology News