The word stethoscope is derived from the two Greek words, stethos (chest) and scopos (examination). Since mankind first began to study human physiology and the physical characteristics associated with various ailments, it has been obvious that the heart plays a crucial role in our bodies. The sounds the heart and surrounding organs, such as the lungs, make can be crucial indicators when examini...

The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation develops voluntary standards for medical devices so that manufacturers might provide information on their product and basic safety and performance criteria that should be considered in qualifying the instrument for clinical use. American national standards are generated through a consensus process by committees consisting of experts...

Over the years, many attempts have been made to develop special stethoscopes for the teaching of auscultation. The objective of this article is to report on the experience with the development and implementation of an electronic stethoscope and a virtual library of cardiac sounds. There were four stages to this project: (1) the building of the prototype to acquire, filter and amplify the cardia...

BACKGROUND Heart murmurs are common in children, and they are often referred to a specialist for examination. A clinically innocent murmur does not need further investigation. The referral area of the University Hospital is large and sparsely populated. A new service for remote auscultation (telemedicine) of heart murmurs in children was established where heart sounds and short texts were sent ...

BACKGROUND The basic requirements for monitoring anesthetized patients during surgery are assessing cardiac and respiratory function. Esophageal stethoscopes have been developed for this purpose, but these devices may not provide clear heart and lung sound due to existence of various noises in operating rooms. In addition, the stethoscope is not applicable for continues monitoring, and it is un...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To survey emergency care providers about their stethoscope-cleaning measures and to determine the correlation between these measures and the extent of Staphylococcus carriage. DESIGN Prospective cross-sectional analysis. SETTING University-affiliated community hospital ED. PARTICIPANTS One hundred fifty health care providers, comprising emergency medicine house staff and ...