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 u...

We have developed an Internet-based tool for remote realtime auscultation. The device was based on a commercially available electronic stethoscope and a PC which digitized and transmitted the signals. A voice and video channel were also available. The remote auscultation tool was evaluated between two sites in Sweden separated by a distance of 500 km. A doctor at one of the sites performed card...

A patient with rheumatic mitral valve stenosis and regurgitation presented with shortness of breath and a "noise" in her chest. Cardiac auscultation revealed an intermittent late systolic "whoop." An increase in severity of mitral valve insufficiency during the periods of "whoop" was observed by pulsed Doppler, hemodynamic tracings and left ventriculography.

Cardiac auscultation is the difficult skill of listening to the human heart and using the sounds heard as clues in diagnosis. The CADI (Cardiac Auscultation Diagnosis Instruction) system is designed to tutor medical students and residents in both phases of auscultation: hearing the sounds and diagnosing illness based on what is heard. The system’s design draws on the case-based teaching archite...

A mitral Starr-Edwards ball valve has, in three patients with concomitant aortic incompetence, permitted recognition of intermittent premature valve closure by auscultation and this has been documented by phonocardiograms. In two instances the observations were confirmed during cardiac catheterization. The features of premature Starr valve closure are described and the mechanism is discussed.

Auscultation, the act of listening to the heart and lung sounds, can reveal substantial information about patients’ health and other cardiac-related problems; therefore, competent training can be a key for accurate and reliable diagnosis. Standardized patients (SPs), who are healthy individuals trained to portray real patients, have been extensively used for such training and other medical teac...