UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING of cardiovascular physiology often involves lectures on heart sounds. To complement these lectures, online resources are commonly used. The audio files of heart sounds are available as free downloads on the internet from websites of stethoscope manufacturers such as Thinklabs (http://www.thinklabsmedical.com/sound-library.html) and Littmann (http://solutions.3mindia.co.in...

INTRODUCTION Hospital environment is a reservoir of wide varieties of microorganisms which are frequently reported colonizing in medical equipment. Stethoscopes are essential tools and of universal use in the medical profession, which might be a source of spreading nosocomial infections. This research project was conducted with an aim to assess the presence of aerobic bacteria in the stethoscop...

Most heart diseases are associated with and reflected by the sounds that the heart produces. Heart auscultation, defined as listening to the heart sound, has been a very important method for the early diagnosis of cardiac dysfunction. Traditional auscultation requires substantial clinical experience and good listening skills. The emergence of the electronic stethoscope has paved the way for a n...

To the Editor: Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have been isolated from a variety of surfaces in the hospital environment, including gowns, call buttons, bed rails, blood pressure cuffs, and stethoscopes.Contaminated electronic rectal thermometers and ear-probe thermometers have been implicated as possible sources for transmission of VRE. High rates of contamination of stethoscopes with b...

This article presents procedures for modifying a hand held computer or personal digital assistant (PDA) into a versatile device functioning as an electronic stethoscope for fetal monitoring. Along with functioning as an electronic stethoscope, a PDA can provide a useful information source for a medical trainee. Feedback from medical students, residents and interns suggests the device is well ac...