Why might the medical assistant opt to take a patients apical pulse rather than radial?

If the medical assistant noted irregularities in the heart rate when palpating the radial pulse, they would opt to take a patients apical pulse for a full minute to make sure they are accurately counting the number of heartbeats per minute.

The soviet union beat the us to the first successful launch, with the october 4, 1957, orbiting of sputnik 1, and later beat the us to have the first human in earth orbit, yuri gagarin, on april 12, 1961. the "race" peaked with the july 20, 1969, us landing of the first humans on the moon with apollo 11