Top 20 Online ECG Courses

Difficult to master (and even harder to teach), the area of ECG interpretation has spawned an entire learning industry devoted to the topic. We take a Google deep dive to evaluate you 20 of the the best #FOAMed and paid ECG courses available online.

ECG Course selection criteria

Inclusion criteria: The ECG course had to be

• in the English language
• readily accessible online, without requiring a formal application process
• found within the first 50 organic Google search results for “ECG/EKG course online” including geographical permutations for UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, or Australia
• a structured course providing students with a defined learning path, not just a series of references/examples and practice cases.
• provide a breadth of learning from basic to advanced applicable to the majority of health care providers such nurses, paramedics, EMT, PA, physicians

Notable exclusions:

• Some courses e.g. Healio and ECGCourse were excluded as they prevented access to residents of the UK and European Union.
• No free course met all of the inclusion criteria. However the best of the FOAMed resources are listed at the end of the post.

Top 10 Paid Resources

1. Medmastery

Medmastery gets the #1 spot for ECG for many reasons. For starters, they’ve got more than 430 reviews on Trustpilot (average rating 4.7/5 stars), are highly commended by the British Medical Association, and won multiple awards for their teaching. They’ve also taught more than a quarter of a million clinicians, and are used by universities and other institutions all over the world. Their courses are all available online, and provide ACCME-accredited AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ as well as UEMS-accredited European CME credits (ECMEC®s). 

Lessons in their ECG courses are fast (averaging 6 minutes long), so are compatible with a busy schedule! They’re also practical—there’s no unnecessary filler, and they focus on skills you’ll actually use in clinical practice.

Medmastery’s ECG Mastery program provides 34 CME  to walk you through everything from beginner to advanced topics:

• ECG Yellow Belt (course)
• ECG Blue Belt (course)
• ECG Black Belt (case-based workshop) 

They also have courses on Holter monitoring (2 CME), and stress testing (3 CME):

• Holter Monitoring Essentials
• Exercise Stress ECG Essentials course
• Exercise Stress ECG workshop (20 cases)

Their Basic and Pro memberships will not only get you access to their ECG training, but to all 120+ of their courses and workshops across over 17 specialities. (If you need CME, choose the Pro membership!) Last, but not least, if you want to try before you buy, they offer a trial membership—it’s free—that gives you access to the first few lessons of each course (i.e. the first chapter), their course handbooks, and several webinars. 

2. ECG Weekly

ECG Weekly is a case-based ECG educational tool aimed to provide regular, useful, contextual in-line learning in a a video-based format. The educational team is led the inimitable Amal Mattu, tenured professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine; and Ali Farzad an emergency physician who teaches at Baylor University Medical Center, as well as Texas A&M College of Medicine.

The weekly ECG cases are augmented by video explanations or ‘ECG Workouts’ with the key teaching points and references in easily digestible bullet-point format, available to review and download. 

Generally speaking, their material assumes you already have a basic understanding of ECG. If you need CME credits, you can get them with an ECG Weekly Max membership.

3. ECG Academy

The ECG Academy is another great resource for anyone looking to up their ECG game with a growing list of medical/nursing and PA schools subscribed to the resource. “Learn To Read Electrocardiograms—By Watching Video Tutorials.” They have over 110 reviews on Trustpilot, and are rated ‘excellent’.

ECG Academy was created by Dr. Nicholas Tullo, a cardiac electrophysiologist with a passion for teaching and has been reviewed previously on LITFL. Courses have been designed for all levels of learner from cardiology technicians to fellows. The site offers three levels of courses, incrementally increasing the learners knowledge base and allowing them to progress to the next learning tier.

With over 60 hours of ECG education offered across all three tiers, learners have the option to start with the basics or shoot straight through to the most advanced level. In addition to the three ECG courses, Dr Tullo also provides weekly ChalkTalks for experienced readers, which are 5-6 minute ‘how to‘ video tutorials based on a single rhythm strip or 12-lead ECG.

Participants can claim up to 38 hours of Category 1 CME points.

They offer several membership tiers, with both monthly and annual payment options. Pricing is flexible with options to complete a certificate for a fixed price or subscribe for continuous access to each course level. For those looking to get their feet a little wet first, the ECG Academy also offers a free basic subscription which gets you access to 3 hours of content and 10 ChalkTalks.

4. BMJ Learning

Using a mixture of 3D animation, audio narrative, images, and detailed text, these ECG courses by BMJ Learning are interesting ones. As you would expect from one of the world’s leading medical journals, BMJ Learning’s ECG courses have all of its courses undergo a peer-review process.

They offer about 14 hours of training spread across 16 courses. They cover both basic and advanced topics, including ECG interpretation and how to handle abnormalities of clinical significance. There is also a reference list of key abnormalities with ECG examples, and a (small) library of ECGs to practice on.

BMJ Learning courses are accredited for CME/CPD by colleges, associations, and authorities from around the world. However, they don’t offer AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ or EACCME®.

5. ECG Waves

This Clinical ECG Interpretation course is centered around the ECG interpretation book of Dr Araz Rawshani. It offers videos to supplement the textbook content. For a one-off cost of $100 (currently selling for $15), this is more of an online e-textbook purchase with video tutorials and ECG tests thrown in for free.

The content is comprehensive and you can check out some parts of the book or trial some ECG tests for free if you want to get a good look before you buy. This is a structured program and the difficulty builds up gradually compared to other books which oversimplify content in a bid to keep it print-friendly.

6. Simple Education

Simple Education Essential Guide to electrocardiogram (ECG) interpretation is an 11-part comprehensive guide to ECG interpretation with over 3 hours of video content and a course manual for download.

Taught by electrophysiologist Prof Richard Shilling and Cardiologist Dr Andrew Sharp, this course is designed to give doctors a solid background in ECG interpretation. With case examples and an MCQ quiz at the end, this course is for those looking for a quick entry to ECG interpretation with a little more depth than the Cardiotute course (see below).

However, because it’s rated 3 out of 5 stars by course-takers, it may be better as an adjunct to your learning rather than your primary source of ECG training.

7. EMedHome—Advanced ECG Workshop

The Premier ECG Workshop is an advanced course with over 7 hours of personal instruction by Dr. Amal Mattu, a renowned educationalist specialising in Emergency Medicine cardiology. The program aims to prime the user with the ability to interpret ECGs like an expert!

The course covers more advanced topics, including subtle and sinister signs and diagnoses not to be missed. Here are examples of topics covered:

1. Recognizing ACS
2. Subtle ECG Manifestations of Cardiac Ischemia
3. ECG Mimics of Cardiac Ischemia
4. Diagnosing Dysrhythmias
5. Bradydysrhythmias and AV Blocks
6. Tachydysrhythmias
7. Wide Complex Tachydysrhythmias: Myths and Pitfalls
8. Syncope, Sudden Death, and the ECG

Upon completion of this course, you are eligible to receive up to 10 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™

8. Corexcel

Corexcel offers several medical courses, including Essentials of Echocardiography. Though it doesn’t list the duration of the course, it looks like an introduction to ECG, and we suspect it is more suited to students and early-career physicians. Examples of topics covered include the heart’s anatomy and physiology, setting up and administering ECGs, characteristics of basic arrhythmias, lead placement, and patient assessment.

Certificates are generated once a student achieves a 70% or better average rating on the chapter tests. You also need to complete a brief evaluation of the course. You can earn up to 5.3 IACET CEUs.

9. ECG Stampede

ECG Stampede is run by a team of 4 physicians. The course contains 10 units, and includes access to their ECG Stampede book. Each unit has the following format:

1. A pre-unit test to assess your knowledge
2. The learning material (video)
3. An opportunity to practice what you just learned
4. A test that asks you to triage several ECGs based on what you just learned

10. Medvarsity

Medvarsity describes itself as ‘Asia’s largest Healthcare EdTech company‘. Their 12-Lead ECG course provides 20 hours of learning content aimed at health professionals across the board. It is not subscription-based but rather, a course you pay for outright and must complete within the 2-month course duration (with a maximum extension of an addition 2 months).

Though we didn’t get past the paywall, the curriculum shown on the site appears to be in line with the content provided by other institutions reviewed here. With an overall rating of 4 out of 5 stars by Medvarsity users, the platform may be worth a look but it’s difficult to gauge the quality of the course without any previews available.

Final Verdict

Each of the courses reviewed here have their strengths. If you are looking for a structured educational course from basic to advanced then Medmastery and the ECG Academy offer the best value proposition. Both offer robust, in-depth ECG courses with a variety of teaching formats at very reasonable prices. Both are taught by well-regarded teachers, offer multiple levels based on existing skill level, and are easy to follow.

For contextual case-based ECG education then ECG weekly is hard to beat, world renowned teaching in easily digestible format, a great way to augment your ECG knowledge. For a deep dive into ECG and nothing else, the ECG Academy might be for you, with 90+ hours of ECG education, you‘ll definitely get your money‘s worth. If you don’t have a lot of spare time and need to maximise the time you spend mastering ECG and if you want an option that gives you access to a wide variety of skill-based courses, Medmastery is probably your best bet.

If you prefer a text-based approach, then the ECG waves course with eBook looks promising with its expanding database and low cost to entry at present.

Free FOAMed Resources

Most of the free ECG resources we found didn’t quite meet all the inclusion criteria but they were so fabulous, we’ve included them here anyway. These are a great supplement to your ECG learning experience and some of these resources are comprehensive enough to help you create your own ECG learning pathway if you’d prefer not to go with a paid course option.

ECG Quiz

• ECG Quiz—ECG Interpretation
• Unique point: Practice with over 200 12-lead ECG strips

#EM3 ECG Interpretation Quiz

• ECG Quiz—ECG Interpretation
• Unique point: Systematic approach to interpreting the 12-lead ECG. Differentiate between common Emergency Department arrhythmias

Practical Clinical Skills

• ECG Training Options
• Unique point: EKG Practice Drills, three courses, and auscultation quizzes are free

ECGPedia

• ECGPedia—The ECG course
• Unique point: Presented as the ‘Wikipedia for ECG’ so very easy to navigate and is content-rich.

EKG Interpretation with Dr Eric Strong

• EKG Interpretation Video playlist
• Unique Point: Over 7 hours of video content presented through their Youtube channel as a structured playlist.

ECG Analysis Queen’s University

• Analysis and Interpretation of the Electrocardiogram
• Unique Point: Short, sweet and to the point. Good overview of the basics.

ECG Assessment

• ECG Assessment—an online course for Healthcare providers
• Unique Point: This is actually a 2-week paid course but you can access it for free after you register. You’ll get immediate access to the first week of course content after confirming your email. Then after a 1-week waiting period, they’ll unlock content from the second week.

ECG Wave-Maven

• ECG Self-assessment program for Students and Clinicians
• Unique Point: Case-based program; browse by cases or diagnoses, also option to view random cases.

ECG Made Simple

• ECG Made Simple—Stepwise Tutorials and practice ECG
• Unique Point: Over 700 ECG tracings are available for study with increasing levels of difficulty (5 different levels).

ECG Simulator

• SkillStat 6-second ECG challenge
• Unique Point: An interface that simulates live ECG tracings to help you quickly learn the unique features of 27 different types of ECG patterns.

EKG Academy

• ECG Academy- free lessons, drills and quizzes
• Unique Point: Offers lessons, cases, and reference sheets in a semi-structured format.

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