Learning Cardiac Auscultation (PDF)

The foundation of this handbook lies in the supremacy of careful, clinical observation in medicine.  The science and application of auscultation, albeit not without its imperfections, represent a learnable, tangible, personal approach to assessment of the heart and remains crucial in medical practice. Today's medicine tends towards the high tech, discarding simple approaches that can and should steer clinicians towards when to utilize expensive testing, and at the most can, potentially, outperform technology for accurate cardiovascular diagnosis. Within a cost conscious, personalized approach  to medicine, the art of clinical examination of the heart could never be more alive, or more important.  Technology needs a clinically informed platform upon which to provide benefits to patients with careful clinical observation providing proper identification of patients in need of additional testing and avoiding unnecessary expensive testing.

Learning Cardiac Auscultation: From Essentials to Expert Clinical Interpretation provides a clinically-oriented approach to the astute observation of heart sounds and other aspects of the cardiovascular examination.  It describes key clinical and auscultation features, and clinical clues to the diagnosis.  More importantly, auscultation of the heart should not just end with a simple diagnosis, but an unearthing of nuances of the diagnosis, for example, describing the possible severity or diagnostic implications of the auscultation findings.