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To be honest, listening to the ticker is a pretty low tech diagnostic technique. Just a couple steps up from urine-tasting, which I'm glad to say died out by the 19th century. But for a busy medical student, Agilent's new electronic stethoscope improves on the time-tested practice of auscultation.
Instead of picking up heart sounds with a diaphragm and transmitting them through an air-filled tube, Agilent uses a powerful microphone that relays cardiac signals to the earpieces. You can pump up the volume to zoom in on those subtle murmurs, without interference from frequencies outside the normal heart, lung, and bowel ranges.
Although the overall effect is like listening to a CD of your favorite cardiac rhythms, it feels much less intimate than using a conventional scope. Funny that being a step closer to the heart should make a difference, but it does.
Agilent Stethos: $349. Agilent Technologies: www.healthcare.agilent.com/mpgsupplies/stetscope.
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