Back to the Future or Nostalgia? Heart Failure and Right-Sided Pressures

摘要

I will preface this missive with some facts. Summer 2016 will be the 42-year anniversary of my medical school graduation. In the dark ages of my residency, echocardiography was a novelty and could not be ordered by residents unless we predicted a significant finding. In that "backward" environment, I got pretty good at evaluating jugular venous pressures. In fact, when my predictions went awry, my professors brought my misadventures to my attention less than diplomatically. Tachycardia in the resident, not the patient, was the consequence.