Palpitations are common. The challenge is determining when the sensation represents a dangerous rhythm or underlying disease.

In Episode 2 of The Clinical Next Step, we approach palpitations using practical Canadian clinical reasoning for MCCQE preparation.

This episode focuses on the decisions that matter: assessing clinical stability, characterizing the patient's symptoms, recognizing important arrhythmias and underlying causes, selecting the appropriate cardiac investigation or monitoring strategy, and identifying patients who require urgent intervention.

Topics covered include:

• Initial assessment and recognition of instability • Characterizing palpitations by onset, duration and associated symptoms • Cardiac and non-cardiac causes • Tachyarrhythmias and bradyarrhythmias • EC ...