Advances in Physiology Education, Vol 268, Issue 6 2-S9, Copyright © 1995 by American Physiological Society
Echocardiography for teaching cardiac physiology in practical student courses
M. Brunner, T. Moeslinger and P. G. Spieckermann
Institute of Medical Physiology, Vienna, Austria.
We have introduced echocardiography into the physiology courses for medical
students to improve their understanding of cardiac physiology.
Echocardiography allows a visualization of the events of the cardiac cycle
and facilitates the correlation of anatomic structures with their
physiological functions. The students record views on the human heart in
the long and short axis, they follow wall and value motions, and they
interpret the obtained data in correlation with electrocardiography and
phonocardiography. Echocardiography offers the opportunity to measure the
interval of isovolumetric contraction and isovolumetric relaxation and
permits the calculation of parameters assigned to left ventricular
contractility. An evaluation showed that medical students consider
echocardiography to be the most significant and interesting part of the
physiology courses. In conclusion, echocardiography has been shown to be a
valuable tool for teaching cardiac physiology.
