Cardiac auscultation is a clinical skill that involves listening to heart sounds using a stethoscope. It is a low-tech way of detecting disease directly without expensive scanners, blood work, or pathology reports—and another reminder that the art of medicine is not a lost art despite today’s technology. Moreover, heart disease is so common that we see plenty of it in many different specialties. Before we get into pathologic sounds, though, we need to learn the basics of normal heart sounds.

After listening to this Audio Brick, you should be able to:

Explain how hemodynamic and electrocardiogram (ECG) events correlate with normal S1 and S2 heart sounds.

Explain the physiology of normal S2 splitting.

Explain the physiology and causes of the following types of abnormal S2 splitting: wide splitting, fixed splitting, and reversed splitting (paradoxical splitting).

Define the extra S3 and S4 heart sounds and describe their timing, physiology, and clinical significance.

You can also check out the original brick from our Cardiovascular collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

***

If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world.

Follow USMLE-Rx at:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/usmlerx

Blog: www.firstaidteam.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstaidteam

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firstaidteam/

YouTube: www.youtube.com/USMLERX

Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/

from our Musculoskeletal, Skin, and Connective Tissue collection, which is available for free.

Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com

You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.