Cardiology history is mainly for physiology-minded learners. It still helps when chest pain, valve disease or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy feels mechanical: heart rate, wall tension, contractility and dynamic gradients explain why bedside anomalies deserve careful checking.

Chest pain, hypoxia, presyncope or collapse with acute PE risk makes this the first thing to open. It clarifies structured risk stratification, when systemic thrombolysis belongs in high-risk PE, and how bleeding risk and anticoagulation decisions should be documented early.

Cancer-treatment dyspnoea and falling exercise tolerance are the clinical entry points here, not the drug name alone. The useful move is surveillance: baseline risk, serial echocardiography, global longitudinal strain, and biomarkers matter, while the SGLT2 story remains promising but still early.

The key lesson is to stop treating palliative care as the final chapter of heart failure. Recurrent admissions, worsening renal function, escalating diuretics or shock should trigger earlier serious illness conversations, better choice awareness around LVAD or supportive care, and clearer hospice handover.

LVAD troubleshooting starts with physiology, not pump numbers alone. A new low-flow alarm with rising vasopressor need or high central venous pressure should trigger rapid assessment for right ventricular failure or tamponade, while blood pressure, rhythm, filling and echo often explain controller changes.