A Practical Approach To Clinical Echocardiography

Product Full Description

Quick Overview Echocardiography is the most commonly used imaging technique at bedside, in OR, in outpatients and in community screening. It is highly portable, noninvasive, repeatable, inexpensive and easily accessible. When used appropriately after some experience, it has inherent internal validation unlike many other imaging modalities. Clinicians using this technique transcend boundaries of specialties. More and more physicians want to learn and practice it. Despite these obvious advantages, this modality remains incompletely utilized. There are several learning modules in capsule form and a multitude of books which claim to make a person expert in short time. In these, either there is over-simplification or meaningless convoluted and complicated equations and biophysical complexity. At fringes, are clinicians who have used this technique year after year for assessment of left ventricular function only. echocardiography represents a strange mixture of several features which have proven prime-time use and an equally numerous techniques which have yet to show clinical utility despite extensive research work spanning decades. There is an urgent need to promote that part of science which has robust validation. What clinicians require needs to be emphasized with clarity. Novices often get unnerved by the available applications on the systems which are more to stand up to the competition rather than of tangible clinical value. However, extensive research has shown applicability of a lot of echocardiographic knowledge and information in day-to-day evidence-based medicine. Quantitative and semi-quantitative protocols are gaining ground because these make serial follow-up easily. This book is an attempt to make echocardiography simple, practical and easily usable with reproducible data. Unnecessary and impractical details have been omitted. DOODY'S BOOK REVIEW REVIEWER'S EXPERT OPINION Arthur Menezes, MD (Ochsner Clinic Foundation) Description l, step-by-step guide to cardiac echocardiography that covers a wide array of essential concepts necessary for this subspecialty in cardiology. Purpose thor's goal is to simplify echocardiography. Audience The easy to read text and concise explanations make this book a valuable guide for beginning cardiology fellows, as well as practicing cardiologists. Features The book is divided into six sections, each of which covers the fundamental concepts necessary to interpret echocardiography. Using high quality images and easily understandable text, the author takes a simple yet effective approach to explaining echocardiography. One of the strongest features of this book is the wide array of images and diagrams used to explain each concept. While the text is clear and easy to understand, the images are masterfully selected and complement the text well. Assessment This is a well-written guide to understanding cardiac echocardiography. The text is complemented well by pertinent images and diagrams, which in turn help readers better understand the concepts. This book would be valuable for any clinician interested in learning echocardiography, as well as for any practicing cardiologist.