The sequence of events within an individual heartbeat as heard through a stethoscope. I saw the need for Simplified Heart Sounds when I was studying for the CCRN test. Having worked in ICU and studied critical care I was generally familiar with the cardiovascular system. But questions on heart sounds stumped me. I just couldn't absorb the facts of heart sounds. That dilemma inspired this pamphlet. The answer to the problem was realizing that my cardiovascular knowledge was an overview of the whole system, contractility, volume, heart rate etc. But questions about heart sounds require an understanding of each individual heartbeat - which for the most part I had not thought about. So if you buy this pamphlet you will have to think a little differently. There are about 50 discrete heart sounds. This book covers the 10 most important. It won't make you a cardiologist. It will give you an appreciation of what happens within each heartbeat and how heart sounds are a window to those events.