As helpful as this book is, however, this text is incomplete. The section on axis determination is not fully instructive, and the text does not offer enough clinical scenarios, as well as it omits a fair number of common abnormalities seen on EKG.

Thaler's text, titled The Only EKG Book You'll Ever Need is a more instructive and comprehensive text, and--in the humble opinion of this doctor--is a superior text for those looking to develop a functional understanding of EKGs.


Wonderful book for med students or anyone who needs to learn   November 12, 2003
 22 out of 24 found this review helpful

This is a wonderful book for nursing or medical students, or anyone who needs to learn EKGs/ECGs. I'm a physician and read EKGs every day and I've never seen another text that was able to teach me the necessary concepts so painlessly. Yes, it *IS* written as if the reader is a third grader and I'm sure that offends some people who have spent their life in school or who want to make people believe that EKG reading is some magical art. Personally I enjoy being taken by the hand and shown everything like it was the first time I'd seen it. I think the teaching method presented here is quit effective for the average Joe or Josephine. Reading EKGs is not magic and this book shows you that anyone *can* really do it. I would strongly encourage anyone who has had trouble grasping the concept of EKGs to pick this book up, and that includes physicians, nurses, students, EMTs, medical technicians, respiratory therapists, heck, ANYONE who wants to learn to read EKGs! I give it my highest recommendation.


Not appropriate for med students   September 5, 2003
 18 out of 42 found this review helpful

This should have been one of the 'for the dummies' series. It's written like a book for a kindergartner, and unless you enjoy those types of books that automatically assume you know absolutely nothing (and I mean 'NOTHING' at all), you will go crazy reading this book. This book will give you surface knowledge (not understanding) that is just enough to make you appear smart in front of other kindergartners. If you want to actually learn and understand EKG, go for other books. I think simplicity is always the way to go, but you are talking about mental-retardation-quality simplicity in this book. I am surprised that Dr. Dubin doesn't start the book w/ lessons of alphabets and numbers.
If you think that you can learn faster because this book is ultra simple, that's a wrong reason to pick up this book. Even for a very simple concept, this book will spend tens of pages to make concepts even more obvious. It's like this: instead of teaching you that 1+1=2, it will show you pictures of an orange and ask you what it is. And then next page, it will show you another picture of orange and ask you what it is. The next page, it will tell you that the two pictures you saw are oranges, not apples. The next page, they will show you an apple and tell you that they are not oranges. On the next page, they will put the two oranges together and ask you again what they are. On the next page, they will tell you that they are oranges. On the next page, they will put 2 apples together and tell you that they are apples, not oranges. On the next page, they will tell you that there are now 2 oranges. On the next page, they will ask you how many oranges there are. You answer 2. On the next page, it will tell you "good job!" and tell you that 1+1=2. If this is not frustrating, this book is for you. If you have no hair left by this point, you don't want this.