Welcome to episode 91 of the Audio PANCE and PANRE Physician Assistant/Associate Board Review Podcast. Today is part one of an extraordinary five-part series with Joe Gilboy PA-C, all about cardiac murmurs. It’s time to throw away everything you have ever learned that made you hate cardiac murmurs (you know those crazy line diagrams) and let Joe hard-wire your brain for success. I promise you that by the end of this podcast, you will no longer be afraid of murmurs, but you will welcome them into your brain with a whole heart, open arms, and the need to share this podcast with all your classmates. Below is a transcription of this podcast episode slightly edited for clarity. * You can download and listen to past FREE episodes here, on iTunes, Spotify, on Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, and most podcasting apps.* You can listen to the latest episode and access even more resources below. Welcome, everybody. This is Joe Gilboy PA-C, and today is part one of a five-part series on the two most dreaded words that every pa student and recert PA hates. Are you ready for the two words? Heart murmurs! Today we’re going to start talking about heart murmurs, and we are going to break this down into a five-part series: * The first part is going to be on the aortic valve (today’s episode)* The second part will cover the mitral valve* The third will be all about the pulmonic valve* The fourth part will be about the tricuspid valve* And then, in the fifth part of this series, we’re going to wrap this all together We’re going to cover each valve one at a time. We will look at it and try to really make sense of it all. Because I know what you did in PA school, you had that little diagram that you made, you know, systolic or diastolic murmurs. You’ve memorized certain things. And then you get to that test question, and you’re completely clueless on it, you’re like, “I have no idea what they just said, Joe, I have no idea.” And then you’re back to scrambling, looking for some word that’s going to trigger you. And that’s the key point- all the trigger words, all those high-value trigger words, they’re gone. That’s what the creators of the PANCE did about two to three years ago. They took all the trigger words out. Key point: * Don’t rely on keywords (trigger words) for your PANCE because they’re gone! So now, let’s look at this differently. You did it your way.