AUTHOR

Constant, Jules (Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine, Buffalo, NY)

ABSTRACT

In this significantly enhanced second edition, Jules Constant, MD, helps physicians to perfect the fine art of history-taking and physical examination as corrective strategy to the sometimes false positives and negatives produced by advanced medical technologies in the diagnosis of cardiac disease. Moving beyond total reliance on laboratory data to the expert evaluation of personal patient data, Dr. Constant summarizes forty years of clinical experience with a proven list of time-tested questions designed to elicit the crucial nuances of cardiac-related symptoms, and then provides a complete differential diagnosis for each demonstrated symptom. His method includes numerous practical tips for obtaining cardiac clues from physical appearance, measuring arterial and jugular pulses and pressures, and using a stethoscope. The heart of the book is an extensive discussion of the art and science of diagramming and grading heart sounds and murmurs, ranging from S1 through S4 to ejection, systolic regurgitant, diastolic, and abdominalal murmurs. A invaluable, stand-alone compact disc offering a seventy-minute course in auscultation, complete with heartsound illustrations taken from actual patients over the course of thirty years, clearly demonstrates and explains the sounds and murmurs discussed.