INTRODUCTION Emergency medicine residents use simulation training for many reasons, such as gaining experience with critically ill patients and becoming familiar with disease processes. Residents frequently criticize simulation training using current high-fidelity mannequins due to the poor quality of physical exam findings present, such as auscultatory findings, as it may lead them down an alt...

A 61-yr-old woman (weight, 121 kg) presented to the operating room for closure of an abdominal wound. Her history was notable for morbid obesity and restrictive lung disease, necessitating numerous therapeutic bronchoscopies for correction of atelectasis. The patient did not have symptoms of recurrent aspiration. She was not specifically questioned about coughing associated with food intake. Ap...

BACKGROUND Stethoscope diaphragms have been shown to harbor potentially pathogenic bacteria. OBJECTIVES To assess bacterial contamination on the diaphragm and under the plastic rim that secures the diaphragm of stethoscopes of physicians, nurses, medical students, and house staff in an intensive care unit and a general medical ward of a large university hospital. Also to compare the effective...

In this paper, we propose a design and implementation of a Web-Based remote digital stethoscope that integrates current software, hardware interface devices, PC, and Internet into the remotely operated virtual instrumentation. The interface devices of this prototype system consist of a traditional stethoscope, a microphone, a sound card, and a headphone. In the network hardware, we use power li...

BACKGROUND Stethoscopes are widely used by doctors and nurses. Poor stethoscope hygiene is a potential source of nosocomial infection. This study aimed to propose an innovative solution, based on the latest advances in ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (LEDs), for disinfecting stethoscope membranes automatically and efficiently. METHODS Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomona...

A stethoscope is an instrument used for auscultations to convey heart sounds as well sounds in the other parts of the body. However, traditional stethoscopes are restricted only to audio representation of such sounds and the diagnosis depends on the expertise of the doctor. This project is an attempt to develop an Embedded Stethoscope to capture heart sounds which offers better noise cancellati...

Student nurse anesthetists are often required to purchase an auscultatory earpiece device for use in the clinical setting. Although the device is required, students have observed that many anesthesia providers in the clinical setting no longer use this piece of equipment. The purpose of this project was to determine the number of anesthesia programs that required mandatory purchase of the auscu...