Friday, February 07, 2014

On the proper use of the stethoscope

This essay on auscultation opens with:

Years ago I heard a story about a sage practitioner who was making teaching rounds. The house staff watched as he listened to the patient's heart with his stethoscope for perhaps 5 minutes. He then stood up to stretch his back and a resident asked him what he thought about the heart murmur. The practitioner responded, “What murmur? I'm still listening to the first heart sound.”

From back in the day when the stethoscope was a clinical tool instead of a coding tool.

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