Scenario
A 72 year old man presents by ambulance to your ED with onset of tachycardia and shortness of breath.
Question
Describe and interpret his ECG (100%)
Answer
FACEM VAQ Exam 2006.1 – Question 8
- Overall pass rate for this question was 25/40 (62.5%).
- The ECG given shows a regular, narrow complex tachycardia with widespread ischaemic changes
- The examiners noted that with the limited clinical information given and the number of ECG abnormalities present a reasonably broad range of possibilities need to be considered in the interpretation.
- The description needed to note the tachycardia which was atrial in origin and associated with significant ischaemic changes.
- The interpretation should have noted that this was likely to be a clinical situation requiring urgent treatment or referral.
- Failures were due to basic errors of description (often including findings that were not present) or due to providing very limited differentials.
About Mike Cadogan
