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(reporter zhou xuejin from people's daily health client) with a pen and a paper box, you can simulate the murmurs of various heart diseases. in recent days, cardiac surgeons have launched a "paper box knocking heart sounds" challenge online, allowing many netizens to directly experience medical science popularization.

“normal heart sounds have regular intervals, are consistent with the heart rate, are clear and have no additional murmurs or abnormal sounds; premature beats can be clearly heard as the regular heartbeat suddenly comes earlier than normal; mitral stenosis - diastolic murmurs have a low, rough, rumbling sound.” on september 7, wu shengjun, deputy chief physician of cardiac and vascular surgery at the first affiliated hospital of zhejiang university school of medicine and a member of the “cardboard box knocking heart sounds” challenge, told a reporter from the people’s daily health client that heart murmurs are an important sign in heart examinations. different heart diseases will have different murmur characteristics, reflecting abnormal conditions caused by blood flowing through heart valves or heart chambers.

"doctor, what exactly is the sound of the split second heart sound?"

"what do you mean by mitral stenosis-diastolic murmur?"

during consultations, many patients asked wu shengjun what those difficult-to-pronounce medical terms looked like and sounded like. wu shengjun was also thinking about how to make the abstract medical terms come alive.

"in specific diagnosis and treatment situations, we will pay attention to indicators such as the tone, intensity and nature of the patient's heart sounds, and judge their heart condition based on the patient's medical history, clinical manifestations, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and other auxiliary examination results," said wu shengjun.

the moment wu shengjun saw the challenge of "knocking heart sounds with a paper box", he had an idea. "the most difficult part of doing this simulated knocking is finding a suitable paper box. i tried five and finally found the one with the best effect." wu shengjun admitted that when simulating knocking heart sounds, he thought of himself sitting in the classroom with a frown and listening attentively to the teaching plan when he was in school.

normal heart sounds, split second heart sound, premature beats, mitral stenosis-diastolic murmur, early diastolic murmur in aortic regurgitation, jet systolic murmur of aortic stenosis... these abstract medical terms have become concrete under the "interpretation" of cardiac surgeons with a pen and a paper box.

wu shengjun (center), deputy chief physician of the department of cardiovascular surgery at the first affiliated hospital of zhejiang university school of medicine, during surgery. photo provided by the interviewee

"only by listening carefully and learning hard can we provide good treatment for patients. to be honest, most cardiac surgeons are indeed very sensitive to rhythm. every time they finish an operation on a patient, they feel a sense of pride when they hear the strong and rhythmic heartbeat," said wu shengjun.