There are a couple of things going on here.
1) Is an ECG looked at in isolation much good at giving an idea of what is going on.
2) Is a computer much good at interpreting an ECG.
The answer to 1) is sometimes, but not always.
The answer to 2) is yes it is. Probably better than most AME's (and I say most) but not as good as most cardiologists. That is not a critcism of AMEs as they know a lot of stuff that cardiologists wouldn't be very good at.
Determining if a dodgy looking ECG is relevant has to be done by a human. In 7gcbc's case the human looked at the ECG as part of the big picture, thought the ECG wasn't important, but sent him off for further checks to eliminate the possible nasties thrown up by the ECG. As 7gcbc wasn't as young as I thought he was and had earlier normal looking ECG's then that was the correct thing to do.
Last edited by slim_slag; 1st February 2006 at 20:40.