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Thread: Abnormal ECG
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Old 4th Jun 2003, 19:38
  #16 (permalink)  
slim_slag
 
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Not sure whether I agree with the concept of "failing an ecg" because of a computer interpretation. These computers are pretty good, sometimes better then a lot of non-cardiologists and that is very useful, but at the end of the day an ecg is only a single piece of evidence for the skilled physician, it often does not show the whole picture. I'd certainly be pretty amazed if a doctor disqualified you from flying for a living because the computer said your ecg was 'borderline normal'.

More important is that you now have a baseline ecg. Quite often the physician will look at a recent ecg and be scratching his head, and wish he had something from a week/month/day/hour ago. It's changes which count a lot, your "normal" ecg may look a bit weird but there is nothing wrong with you. Sometimes you can have a normal ecg and on walking of of the door you drop dead of an arrythmia.

I remember handing a group of medical students an ecg, but I'd taken out the computer diagnosis. Was some time ago, back in the days the computer would throw out some real funnies. Half of the students didn't even know which way up it should be. Good things these computers, but they are damaging the 'art'. Looking at some of the threads in the professional forum, it appears the same thing is happening in flying jets.
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