BJSM education to improve your ECG reading skills

com/site/education/index.xhtml) will teach you to interpret ECGs so you can differ-entiate benign ECG changes seen in ath-letes from pathological patterns. Why is this important? Sudden death from cardiac conditions is the leading cause of mortality in athletes during sport.1 Most disorders that increase risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) can be identified by abnormal findings on a 12-lead ECG. Whether used for the diag-nostic evaluation of cardiovascular-related symptoms, a family history of inheritable cardiac disease or premature SCD, or for the screening of asymptomatic athletes, ECG interpretation is an important skill for sport and exercise medicine clinicians.2 However, the challenge in the interpret-ation of an athlete’s ECG is to accurately differentiate pathological findings from benign physiological adaptations to train-ing (the athlete’s heart, figure 1).3–6 Without education in this area, the ability of many physicians to correctly interpret an athlete’s ECG is relatively poor and may lead to a high rate of false-positive and false-negative reports. Providing physicians with a set of stan-dardised criteria to guide them through the interpretation of ECGs significantly improves their ability to distinguish normal from abnormal findings, even in physicians with little or no experience of reading ECGs.7 8 Educating physicians in the interpretation of ECGs is not only feasible, it is accompanied by measurable improvements in accuracy. Six sequential modules 1. Introduction: Tes