Albuquerque EKG Technicians Keep the Beat All Night Long

EKG Technicians don't just stare at heart monitors all day, as Kim, a Biochemistry major at UNM and an EKG Technician at an Albuquerque hospital, explains in this science career spotlight. Cardiovascular Physiology is the study of the circulatory system, specifically the heart and blood vessels. EKG Technicians are usually needed as a precaution due to a primary illness that ends up affecting the heart and changing the rhythm, says Kim. EKG Technicians need to be well educated and sharp-minded to give the best care to a patient. "I always try to make sure that a nurse or the patient's doctor receives the EKG as soon as I'm done, no matter what. I'm not told specifically what the providers are looking for when they put in an order, but there's usually a reason that is more obvious when I enter the room. For example, if I find a patient who is having difficulty breathing, sweating and the EKG indicates ST elevation, they are most likely having an MI (myocardial infarction, the technical term for a heart attack)."

EKG Techs use an EKG (or ECG, Electrocardiogram) machine to monitor the electrical activity of the heart over time.

"The EKG machine's job is to detect the electrical impulses created by the heart muscle. Certain rhythms picked up by the EKG machine can tell a cardiologist what part of the heart is not functioning correctly or has a blockage. Each section of the heart emits a particular current that the EKG picks up. When they fire, you get a wave. The basic generic version goes like this: when the whole heart is functioning properly, you get a P,Q,R,S,T for each heartbeat. The P wave is at the beginning of the cycle and that is the small bump at the beginning of the beat where the sinoatrial node fires to the rest of the heart to beat. The Q,R,S is the ventricles (the large chambers) contracting and dilating. This is the taller 'peak' you see on a cardiac monitor. The last peak 'T' looks almost like the P-wave at the beginning but it is the ventricles repolarizing (recovering) for the next heartbeat. For the most part, seeing a QRS following a p-wave makes us happy. There are a lot of different interactions between combinations of these intervals that cardiologists are trained in to diagnose heart disease.", explains Kim.

"For stress-echo tests we have a treadmill and larger EKG machine that monitors the heart rhythm and blood pressure, which connects to an echocardiogram (an ultrasound for the heart) machine while the patient is on the treadmill. During stress-echo tests, it's a little more complicated because you're physically watching the patient on the treadmill, watching the heart monitor and blood pressure all at the same time. When we start, the patient is attached to the monitor and we get a baseline EKG, the echo tech gets some pictures and the doc gives us the green light. Many times these are ordered because the patient has chest pain or shortness of breath, but standard tests do not indicate a cardiac problem. When the patient is on the treadmill, our goal is to "stress" the heart and attempt to mimic the physiological condition that caused their chest pain or SOB. The treadmill starts out slow and level, while increasing in speed and incline every 3 minutes. We're watching the monitor and looking for a change in the rhythm on the EKG while they exercise, as well as communicating with the patient for any signs of pain or distress and noting them on the machine at the time. Most of the time the doc is in the room so we inform them of these things as they occur, this is so the doc can narrow down and pinpoint what is causing the cardiac symptoms. Once we get the patient to the max heart rate we need, we help them back to the echo tech who gets more pictures of blood flow while their heart is under stress."

Those interested in a career as an EKG Technician should take courses in Anatomy, Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematics.