Stethoscope

“Therefore, multiple reasons explain the time course of the general adoption of the stethoscope by practitioners in America, which include lack of formal medical education, relative lack of clinical bedside training for those going to medical school, complexity of interpretation of auscultatory information, lack of specific treatment for diseases that might be discovered by its use, hesitancy of the physician and the patient to have an instrument placed between them, lack of continuing education opportunities for physicians after leaving medical school, and lack of time and money for physicians to obtain advanced training. A main source for learning new clinical techniques was the medical journal, but even if it mentioned auscultation, it contained little practical information on how to use the stethoscope, and without practical bedside experience with patients, recognition and interpretation of the various complex sounds could not be achieved. To learn the use of the stethoscope, there needed to be educational exposure, as well as preceptorship bedside training, but those opportunities did not exist outside of the large urban academic locations and were likely not felt to be necessary by rural physicians” (Reinhart, 77-78).