The Fun Stuff in the Cardio Tech Program

When cardiac anatomy & physiology started, I started getting excited because this was the stuff I signed up to learn about.  The cardiac courses I have completed over this summer include Cardiac Anatomy & Physiology (A&P), Cardiac Pathophysiology, and Cardiac Pharmacology.   I definitely underestimated the amount of new theory there was to learn on the heart because no other courses I had previously taken focused solely on the cardiovascular system.

In Cardiac A&P we studied every nook and bevel of the heart, from fetal development to an adult, every angle of the heart was significant for different reasons. We were recommended to buy a heart model which I did purchase for a great price thanks to our teacher giving us an awesome website and it helped soooo much!

Once Cardiac A&P was finished I started Cardiac Pathophysiology where we studied heart murmurs, diseases, syndromes, and diagnostic tests.  In one of our first sessions we learned about the proper use and placement of stethoscopes for listening to heart’s sounds. I drove my significant other nuts that week trying to count his ribs and listen to his hearts as practice – I even tried listening to my cat’s heart (haha).  I learned about various diagnostic tests and what each of them were used for which excited me for my clinical practice experiences that were still months away.

I ended the summer with Cardiac Pharmacology which covered various medications used to treat different heart diseases and syndromes. This course was designed with a lot of case study assignments that were required to be completed but was a breeze to get through because they didn’t feel like homework. The case studies would list a patient’s history, data from a physical examination, and results from various tests they had completed. It was our job to try to diagnose and treat the patients with what we thought best based on the knowledge we have learned in our courses. These puzzle-like assignments made the course fun and a little easier to get through.

This summer was a fun educational one but it was not without its hardships. I ran into a lot of troubling events that made school a lot tougher to get through but I survived! I am very much enjoying what I am learning but I don’t want people to think this program is a piece of cake. There are sacrifices you will make which I will be taking about in my next blog. Stay tuned! …

Check out a video of our cardio tech students in action.