I took my EKG test for telemetry and missed some STUPID ones!! I have to take it again in a few weeks. Basically, I decided at the last minute to take the test when I should have taken a few more days to review it again after being away from it a few weeks with the JCAHO madness. Had I done that, I would have reviewed the heart blocks again and the junctional rhythms a bit more.
What annoyed me was that there was a diagram of the heart, and it had numbers asking what part was what, but, it was pointing at areas where the SA node, AV node, HIS bundle and Purkinjie Fibers would have been located, and what they wanted to know was the bicuspid, tricuspid, septum and a few other things. I also missed premature junctional contraction, the capture for a pacemaker, and got Mobitz 1 and 2 mixed up. I caught all of the dangerous rhythms such as supraventricular tachycardia, v-tach, v-fib, bigeminy, multifocal PVCs, asystole, PVC, and a few others. The woman did tell me that she wanted for me to make arrangements with the nursing administrator of med-surg to actually learn how the monitors work and she would then give me the same exam again. She even gave me the answers. What I did mention, though in a tactful way was that I would not have known that they wanted to know specifically about the structure of the heart, I would have expected that they wanted me to know where the SA, etc...was located. So, instead of getting about 4 wrong, with that stupid diagram, she counted it as 8.
I do know, though, that knowing those rhythms ARE important, so, I have to go off and review again. At least, she is giving me a chance to actually see what is happening in telemetry and to take the exact same one again. I'll be okay...just a slightly bruised ego, and I really want to make use of my EKG class.
