Ehrlich’s topic was entitled “The Effect of Smoking on the ECG of a Healthy Individual.” “When patients would come in for a routine electrocardiogram I handed them a questionnaire about their smoking history.  After removing those with a history of heart disease I learned to read each ECG for 9 specific abnormalities.  I then compared the number of abnormalities on the ECGs of smokers vs. nonsmokers.  I also divided my result by age and subdivided that by smoking history to eliminate age as a confounding factor.  In the end I found that smokers did indeed have more abnormalities then nonsmokers and that the number increases with age in smokers but not in nonsmokers.  This experiment is valuable because electrocardiograms provide a quick and painless way to provide evidence of the dangerous effects of smoking which could lead to things such as earlier diagnosis of heart problems which smoking are known to cause.”
 
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May 2004