Cite this post as:
Scott Weingart, MD FCCM. EMCrit Wee: The Lewis Lead and a course in ECGs with Christopher Watford. EMCrit Blog. Published on February 15, 2012. Accessed on January 24th 2025. Available at [https://emcrit.org/emcrit/lewis-lead/ ].
Financial Disclosures:
The course director, Dr. Scott D. Weingart MD FCCM, reports no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies. This episode’s speaker(s) report no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies unless listed above.
CME Review
Original Release: February 15, 2012
Date of Most Recent Review: Jul 1, 2024
Termination Date: Jul 1, 2027
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Glad to be on the podcast, and thanks for the kind words!
I should disclose that I’ve been an associate editor at the EMS 12-Lead blog for about a year now, so you can take that recommendation with a grain of salt 😉
I’ll have to try this. Back in the olden days (think Lifepack 3) We simply put RT arm lead on the sternum and the Lt leg lead on the back and set it for lead II. Looks directly through the atrium. I actually had to do this two nights ago to determine whether someone was in AF with slow RVR or 3rd degree heart block.
Mike J.
I’ll have to try the thru-the-chest look. I’ll post some 3-Leads that compare the two views. The nice thing with the thru-the-chest view is the ventricular vector like likely pointing away from it.
Ok,
P.s. I second the recommendation for the CCTMC conference for those interested in out of hospital care. I’m speaking on Sepsis (so that’s probably a waste of your time) and the rest of the conference is phenomenal for state of the art transport medicine
Mike J.
nice tip Chris! must try that one out. Do y really find it useful in the prehospital setting.?
Love the idea of the opening talk for the air medical conference!
To date I’ve used it twice: on a VT versus SVT versus PMT patient and a ST versus a slower Atrial Flutter patient. In the former it provided no additional data, in the latter it confirmed atrial flutter.
If I use it in the field I will have completed a 12-Lead, tried doubling the gain and compared II, V1, and V6 on a long rhythm strip…if I’m still searching at that point I’ll place the Lewis Leads. I will admit I don’t hold strict to which two limb electrodes get chosen, you just have to remember which lead to view!
i’ve now found a few cases of flutter, a 3rd degree block with p-waves that were indiscernible on 12 lead, and a sinus brady with BBB that looked like vent escape.
Scott, thanks for the shout! There’s no better clinical conference dedicated to transport medicine in the US than CCTMC. I’d love to see you there one of these years; until then, I’ll keep preaching the Emcrit gospel. Mike, I look forward to your sepsis talk! Chris, you taught me something completely new today. Thank you.
Love to join you folks next year
Christopher is far too humble to plug it heavily, so I’ll do it for him. The EMS 12-Lead Blog (Tom Bouthillet’s along with Christopher and David Baumrind) is probably the best single educational resource online for learning the ECG. It’s 100% free, diligently maintained, and exercises a depth and breadth that is valuable for every level of care. For developing a skill that remains very relevant, and yet is somewhat on the decline in healthcare today, I think it’s an invaluable resource and one of the best examples I know of what web-based education can do. I myself owe a… Read more »
Chris has outlined an excellent path to ECG mastery, but I would also add to Structured Learning: Garcia and Miller’s “Arrhythmia recognition: the art of interpretation.” Where Garcia’s 12-lead book will really help with basic 12-lead interpretation, Garcia’s arrhythmia book will help one learn an “intermediate” level of rhythm interpretation. It addresses concepts in a straightforward, graphics rich, manner similar to his 12-lead book ; but goes beyond basic generalizations like SVT to teach AVNRT, AVRT, pacemaker rhythms, etc. I have to say Amal Mattu’s 2 books of ECG’s for the Emergency Physician really increased my comfort level. I did… Read more »
Great segment Scott. And great ECG nuggets Chris and Mike. Now I have two third options after increasing the paper rate and gain. Thanks for all the ECG resources – I’ve been looking for a way to brush up and I’ll be passing them on to all our trainees.
One more resource for you: one of our EM residents pointed me to this site, http://www.emedu.org/ecg/
which has some good markups of various conditions. There is a Quiz function on the site which is quite useful.
Cheers,
Paul