title: Electrocardiographic crotchets or common errors made in the interpretation of the electrocardiogram.
abstract: Irritating errors are called crotchets. This paper discusses the following electrocardiographic crotchets: memorizing patterns rather than using basic principles, failure to use the electrocardiogram as a diagnostic tool, failure to correlate all available data, failure to appreciate the limitation of the computer interpretation, failure to appreciate the diagnostic value of P-wave abnormalities, the identification and misuse of abnormal Q waves, the misuse of left or right axis deviation of the QRS complexes, the misuse of the amplitude of the QRS complexes as a sign of left ventricular hypertrophy, identification of left ventricular hypertrophy, failure to identify uncomplicated and complicated bundle-branch block, failure to identify secondary and primary T-wave abnormalities, failure to identify secondary and primary S-T abnormalities, and lack of knowledge of the U waves.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Hurst
mesh_terms: D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000175:diagnosis; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D003951:Diagnostic Errors; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D017379:Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular / Q000175:diagnosis; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000175:diagnosis; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted