Heart-Murmur Books

Joan Butman tells us how Christ reveals himself in her everyday life! He is real to her and she makes Him real to us. Thank you Joan.

I happen to know and admire Joan already and her book just reinforced what I already know about her wonderful character. As a wife, mother and denizen of the same Connecticut town I know exactly of what she speaks when she writes about all the pressures we face on a day to day basis. I received the book in the mail yesterday and read it cover to cover. I couldn't stop thinking about it and will be rereading it today. For me, finding God in my everyday life is a journey that I have just started. I'm glad she is along for the ride.

I am a medical student and I bought this as a gift for a friend in nursing school. He found it a little intimidating at first, probably because he hadn't really covered much of what was on the CD but he has grown to love the set! It has helped him a great deal. It is a little pricey but it is a great gift idea for someone who is studying a health profession in your life.

After finishing medical school and never getting great teaching on the cardiac auscultatory exam, I purchased this book in hopes of learing a little more.

This book and 3 CD set have great auditory examples with discussion both verbal & written by Dr. Mason. Recommended for anyone who wants to improve their cardiac exam!

Nadia's father died of a heart attack when she was five. Her mother told Nadia that she had the same condition, and kept Nadia sequestered all of her life. Now in sixth grade, Nadia has no friends, no activities, and the bleak outlook of being further isolated by being home schooled. Her slightest cough has her mother putting to bed. Sometimes in school, Nadia gives up as well and puts her head on her desk--after all, no one expects anything from the sick girl. She tries out for the school play, does a brilliant audition and is devastated when she doesn't get the part. She finds out later that her mother told the teacher not to allow Nadia to participate. Nadia is old enough now to raise questions, and, with typical coming-of-age surging of independence, to rebel against her parent. She finds out, by virtue of being in a position to read her medical chart at the doctor's office, that she is perfectly fine, a slight heart murmur notwithstanding. This encourages Nadia to take her life back to herself. Some reviewers have felt the narrator's voice to be unsympathetically whiny, but it is perfectly well-drawn for a child who was treated as sickly her whole life. Who wouldn't be whiny? This is a well-done chyrsalis-to-butterfly story--the larval stage being neither understood nor revered by most onlookers.

Nadia really does want to play with the other kids. She is tired of playing with paper dolls. But her overprotective mother will not allow her to do anything that will put her fragile heart at risk; i.e. anything that could help her make real friends--running, jumping, rolling around on the forbidden sawdust pile. Besides, the paper dolls have never laughed at her. They have never pointed at her or called her "the sick girl." Still, as she plays with her dolls, despite her mother's constant warnings to the contrary, it occurs to Nadia that she does not wish to allow fear to dominate her life: "Paper dolls. Paper books. Paper cards. Paper life" (p. 85).

So, Nadia devises a plan. She will become an actress. She will secure the lead in the sixth-grade play, and then she will be someone everyone will want to know. She won't tell her mother, of course, and by the time Mrs. Riley knows that the little white lies she has told to get the role are, well, not the complete story, no one will be angry with her because she will have shown them all that she does indeed have value beyond being a source of constant worry for her mother and a target for teasing for the kids at school.

Arrington does an excellent job of exploring the problems that arise when a parent becomes overprotective of a child with a medical condition. Additionally, the unexpected twist she includes is a welcome breath of fresh air in this reviewer's opinion. It is entirely credible, but keeps the storyline from becoming predictable. Nadia's quest to be more than just "the sick girl" becomes a journey for both her and her mother, and it is one that the reader will be glad she has taken, as well.

Reviewed by: Mechele R. Dillard

Barbara Erikson's Heart Sounds and Murmurs, third edition, is an outstanding reference that defies the concepts needed by practitioners and students who are learning or reviewing cardiac auscultation. The audio-program - now in compact disc format - and accompanying booklet explain how to identify and interpret normal and common abnormal heart sounds. Validation of self-learning is made possible by listening to and identifying the "unknown" heart sounds at the end of each chapter.
Features:
Presents content written by a well respected author to ensure that information is current and clinically accurate.
Provides learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter to help students, reviewers, and teachers identify key concepts.
Includes and index, a detailed table of contents, a glossary, and a transcript of the audio program to facilitate ease of use and to aid learning.
Features figures and tables throughout the text that permit learners to visualize concepts and sounds.
New Features:
Includes varied heart sounds caused by mechanical valve replacement (prosthetic) devices that are currently available and in use in several countries.
Includes pacemaker and extracardiac sounds, including plural and cardiac friction rubs.
provides audio in compact disc format.
Description is © Mosby

I received this book from Mr. Calloway and it is awesome. I have read it a dozen times and still continue to read it every night. No matter how I'm feeling I can always read one of his poems to make me feel better. There's something in there to relate to just about anything. I absolutely LOVE this book!

This program is available, and updated for newer systems, and is also supported by the company that produced it, Blaufuss Multimedia. If you have trouble finding the product on Amazon, search for Heart Sounds on the internet.

and is no longer supported by the company that produced it. It is good only for older computer systems, read the specs, windows 3.1 or macintosh 7.

It's a good book/cd but is not New.

Includes physiologic data and excellent graphics. Recommended for advanced nursing personel, residents and practicing physicians. Very easy to navigate CD from normal heart tones to sounds produced by cardiac pathology. With a click you can bring up text which explains the graphics and sounds on the current screen. Well worth the price.

Criley's interactive CD ROM program on cardiac physiology and findings is a masterpiece. The content is solid and enables an inquisitive student (any student of medicine) to learn to relate physical findings with the physiology as represented by phono, ECG, pressure traces and renderings of the physical cardiac cycle. The multimedia presentation far excels that which is available on the WEB and makes for an intriguing learning experience. I have delighted in presenting physiology to students, housestaff, and colleagues through this means. It is a worthwhile investment for any committed medical educator.

The program (MAC, Win95 & NT4.0) is a real multimedia application - not just a book put on a CD.

In a more or less ordered fashion you can access the physiological and some pathological sounds and murmurs of the heart as a combination of

-sound

-phonogram

-cartoon

-pressure curves

-EKG

-echo

in mostly sensible combinations. It very well illustrates the physiological origin and is actually useful to train your ear. Naturally, it's sometimes even too exemplaristic (=easy) and a real patient (esp. with a higher rate!!) might give you a harder time.

One slight disadvantage: the contents could be a little better organized so you had a better access to the different sections.