Free reference material

Three cards worth pinning to the reporting room wall

Written and clinically reviewed by Dr A M Thirugnanam, MD, MSICP, FSCAI, Ph.D., Senior Interventional Cardiologist. Each carries a named author, a review date, the sources it rests on, and a plain statement of what it does not cover.

No payment, no membership, no obligation to buy anything afterwards. Print them, circulate them in your department, teach from them.

Bedside card · 4 pages · PDF

The Systematic ECG Reading Sequence

The ten-step order of examination, the ST-elevation thresholds by lead, sex and age, and the four occlusion patterns that never meet millimetre criteria — de Winter, Wellens, modified Sgarbossa, and diffuse depression with aVR elevation. Ends with the six mimics worth naming before you activate the lab.

Updated for the Fifth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction, published August 2026, including the electrocardiographic changes it introduced.

Download the ECG card

Reporting card · 3 pages · PDF

Echocardiography Reference Values

Chamber quantification, right heart, diastolic function and the severe thresholds for all five valve lesions, sex-specific throughout. Includes the pitfall that invalidates each diastolic variable, and the correct decision rule when filling pressures are indeterminate.

Carries the 2026 heart failure reclassification, which changes the conclusion line of any report quoting an ejection fraction between 41 and 49 per cent.

Download the echo card

Guideline briefing · 3 pages · PDF

What Changed in 2026

Four documents published in the last twelve months change what a correct answer looks like: the Fifth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction, the 2026 ESC heart failure guidelines, the 2025 ESC/EACTS valvular guidelines, and two first-edition ESC guidelines on cardiac rehabilitation and on cardiovascular disease in chronic kidney disease.

Written for clinicians updating teaching material, and for anyone sitting an examination where the marking scheme may still be a year behind.

Download the 2026 briefing

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If these are useful, the teaching goes further

The ECG card is the opening sequence of Essential ECG Interpretation. The echo card is the reporting discipline taught across the Echocardiography Complete Pathway. Members pay less on every course and every title in the library.

Free to circulate. Print and share these within your department, unaltered and with the colophon page attached. Please do not republish them elsewhere or remove the author attribution.

Scope. Educational reference material for qualified clinicians and clinicians in training. Not a substitute for individual clinical judgement, your local protocol, or the full text of the source documents. Reference ranges vary between guideline bodies and laboratories; where your laboratory has validated its own, use those.