Cardiac computer tutor | |
Auscultation of the heart. A cardiophonetic approach. T Anthony Don Michael. New York: McGraw-Hill 1997 (xiv + 399 pp + computer disc). ISBN: 0 07 018005 9. |
Cardiophonetics is in
part a response to the premise that "only a small percentage of (American) students demonstrate proficiency in (the) essential skill" of cardiac auscultation. Happily, this statement has limited veracity in Australia and New Zealand, where clinical skills remain high. Dr Don Michael and colleagues have used sophisticated sound analysis technology to render a broad range of normal and abnormal cardiac auscultatory findings into phonetic transliterations. Thus, the typical sound of a fourth heart sound becomes:
 and that of mitral stenosis
 The resulting phonemes give a more accurate representation of actual heart sounds than classical descriptions such as the "distant rumbling thunder" of mitral stenosis. The text comes with a 3.5" floppy diskette with multimedia, providing integration of heart sounds, their phonemes and accompanying clinical information, such as the best sites to auscultate for each condition. Regrettably, the audio quality proved inconsistent across a variety of common computing platforms, and this greatly limits its utility as a teaching aid. Cardiophonetics may just be a sophisticated version of how many clinician tutors approach bedside teaching; however, the author has developed the concept to provide a broader framework for learning clinical cardiac examination. The resulting "user-friendly" text is a useful addition to the current literature. It sits somewhere between traditional student-level introductions to clinical examination and more detailed tomes such as those directed to candidates for specialist physician exams. Paul E Langton
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