Easy Memory Trick to Remember Which View of the Heart is Shown by Each EKG/ECG Lead

Below is a diagram I created to help remember which parts of the heart are seen with each electrocardiogram lead. I hope this helps out any nursing and med students who struggle with remembering this.

As you probably know if you’re studying EKGs right now, here’s what the strip looks like:

Basically, start by remembering this sentence: “Like in Iceland, like in Spain, some-amazing ass an*l Lois Lane.” Starting at the very top left corner (I), you’ll say this sentence while moving down each column.

The first letter of each word in the sentence will remind you which part of the heart the lead is looking at. “L” stand for lateral, “I” stands for inferior, “S” for septal, “A” for anterior.

Note that this memory trick does skip over aVR, which is sometimes called the forgotten lead. aVR looks at the right upper portion.

Please note I didn’t come up with this memory trick on my own, but I did modify the sentence to make it more accurate, and I created this image.

For more fun and useful nursing content, check out my podcast, Nothing But Nursing .

Thanks for reading and happy studying!