The present booklet and CD aim to cover an important teaching topic: the systemic approach to pediatric cardiac auscultation. This edition hopes to become a valuable tool not only for medical students during their clinical exercise, but also for general pediatricians and primary health care physicians, responsible for primary health care screening of infants and young children, as well as for cardiologists with a special interest in pediatric cardiology. 

This booklet aims to a) briefly present the mechanical function of the heart and the physics of normal and abnormal cardiac sounds and b) to provide multimedia graphics as well as a "virtual" clinical practice environment, in the associated CD, as a valuable addition to theoretical knowledge.  The theoretical section includes a suggested systemic approach in performing and describing cardiac auscultatory findings, mainly based on temporal (within the cardiac cycle) and spatial (localization on the chest) characteristics of cardiac sounds. Further sound characteristics (frequency, temporal variation of intensity, duration and spatial extension) are presented in detail, allowing the reader to provide an accurate differential diagnosis based on clinical findings. 

The text is linked to the associated multimedia CD, with referrals to animations (d) and virtual cardiac auscultation cases (h). Animations display the mechanical function of the normal and abnormal (congenital heart disease) heart and the basis of the genesis of normal and abnormal heart sounds.

Ioannis Germanakis