YouTube as an educational resource for learning ECGs Eric Strong MD PII: DOI: Reference:
S0022-0736(14)00162-9 doi: 10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2014.05.005 YJELC 51876
To appear in:
Journal of Electrocardiology
Received date:
21 April 2014
Please cite this article as: Strong Eric, YouTube as an educational resource for learning ECGs, Journal of Electrocardiology (2014), doi: 10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2014.05.005
This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Title: YouTube as an educational resource for learning ECGs
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Affiliations: Clinical Assistant Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine Hospitalist, VA Palo Alto Health Care System
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Author: Eric Strong, MD
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Corresponding Author: Eric Strong 725 Clark Way Palo Alto, CA 94304 United States [email protected] 1-650-283-5178
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT To the editor:
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I read with great interest the article by Akgun et al (1) on learning electrocardiography from YouTube videos. The authors sought to identify the usefulness and accuracy of videos posted to YouTube which covered the field of ECG interpretation, specifically arrhythmias and conduction abnormalities. As a producer of such videos with a large international following, my opinion on this topic is well informed. While I applaud the authors' attention to this important topic, I am concerned that erroneous assumptions about how learners use YouTube have impacted their conclusion that "YouTube is an inadequate source of information for ECG".
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The most concrete erroneous assumption involves the YouTube search terms used for the study. For example, to identify videos on bundle branch block, the authors used the terms "LBBB" and "RBBB", which were reportedly deduced from use of Google Trends, and the authors limited analysis to the first 10 pages of results (top 200 videos). However, searching YouTube for "RBBB" (at least today in April 2014) yields only 5 videos about cardiology, approximately 190 videos about a circus train, and 5 random videos on other irrelevant topics. Any regular user of YouTube looking for videos related to ECGs would immediately realize that RBBB was a poor search term, and would revise his or her search to "right bundle branch block" which would yield approximately 160 relevant videos within the first 10 result pages. As further evidence of this, analysis of the statistics of my own YouTube video covering bundle branch blocks shows that not a single person (of the 10,000+ views) appears to have identified the video using "RBBB" as a search term. As a consequence of viewers not using RBBB to reach my video, it is listed very low in the results to that particular search, and thus, the authors presumably would not have even included it in their analysis. Another example of inappropriate, or at least, incomplete search terms is searching only using "ECG" instead of "ECG" or "EKG". The consequence of the authors' using inappropriate search terms is that their sample of videos was both too small, and skewed.
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Another erroneous assumption which is an even greater flaw is the assumption that the average student of cardiology who uses YouTube for education is incapable of discerning high quality videos from inaccurate or useless ones. In my experience, medical students and housestaff quickly cast aside videos of poor production quality, those narrated by individuals appearing to lack credibility, and those which convey obviously false information. As an example, the 3 specific videos on VT that were cited by the authors in this paper's discussion (which ranged from 13 to 32 seconds in length), are so obviously useless that all would have been immediately discounted by any serious student. In summary, I strongly disagree that YouTube is an inadequate source of information on ECG, and that greater participation from universities is required. I welcome any readers to view my own, personally produced YouTube channel, Eric's Medical Lectures, to decide for themselves.
References Akgun T, Karabay CY, Kocabay G, Kalayci A, Oduncu V, Guler A, Pala S, Kirma C. J Electrocardiol. 2014;47:113-7.
S0022-0736(14)00162-9 doi: 10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2014.05.005 YJELC 51876
To appear in:
Journal of Electrocardiology
Received date:
21 April 2014
Please cite this article as: Strong Eric, YouTube as an educational resource for learning ECGs, Journal of Electrocardiology (2014), doi: 10.1016/j.jelectrocard.2014.05.005
This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Title: YouTube as an educational resource for learning ECGs
SC
RI P
Affiliations: Clinical Assistant Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine Hospitalist, VA Palo Alto Health Care System
T
Author: Eric Strong, MD
AC
CE
PT
ED
MA
NU
Corresponding Author: Eric Strong 725 Clark Way Palo Alto, CA 94304 United States [email protected] 1-650-283-5178
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT To the editor:
RI P
T
I read with great interest the article by Akgun et al (1) on learning electrocardiography from YouTube videos. The authors sought to identify the usefulness and accuracy of videos posted to YouTube which covered the field of ECG interpretation, specifically arrhythmias and conduction abnormalities. As a producer of such videos with a large international following, my opinion on this topic is well informed. While I applaud the authors' attention to this important topic, I am concerned that erroneous assumptions about how learners use YouTube have impacted their conclusion that "YouTube is an inadequate source of information for ECG".
PT
ED
MA
NU
SC
The most concrete erroneous assumption involves the YouTube search terms used for the study. For example, to identify videos on bundle branch block, the authors used the terms "LBBB" and "RBBB", which were reportedly deduced from use of Google Trends, and the authors limited analysis to the first 10 pages of results (top 200 videos). However, searching YouTube for "RBBB" (at least today in April 2014) yields only 5 videos about cardiology, approximately 190 videos about a circus train, and 5 random videos on other irrelevant topics. Any regular user of YouTube looking for videos related to ECGs would immediately realize that RBBB was a poor search term, and would revise his or her search to "right bundle branch block" which would yield approximately 160 relevant videos within the first 10 result pages. As further evidence of this, analysis of the statistics of my own YouTube video covering bundle branch blocks shows that not a single person (of the 10,000+ views) appears to have identified the video using "RBBB" as a search term. As a consequence of viewers not using RBBB to reach my video, it is listed very low in the results to that particular search, and thus, the authors presumably would not have even included it in their analysis. Another example of inappropriate, or at least, incomplete search terms is searching only using "ECG" instead of "ECG" or "EKG". The consequence of the authors' using inappropriate search terms is that their sample of videos was both too small, and skewed.
AC
CE
Another erroneous assumption which is an even greater flaw is the assumption that the average student of cardiology who uses YouTube for education is incapable of discerning high quality videos from inaccurate or useless ones. In my experience, medical students and housestaff quickly cast aside videos of poor production quality, those narrated by individuals appearing to lack credibility, and those which convey obviously false information. As an example, the 3 specific videos on VT that were cited by the authors in this paper's discussion (which ranged from 13 to 32 seconds in length), are so obviously useless that all would have been immediately discounted by any serious student. In summary, I strongly disagree that YouTube is an inadequate source of information on ECG, and that greater participation from universities is required. I welcome any readers to view my own, personally produced YouTube channel, Eric's Medical Lectures, to decide for themselves.
References Akgun T, Karabay CY, Kocabay G, Kalayci A, Oduncu V, Guler A, Pala S, Kirma C. J Electrocardiol. 2014;47:113-7.
