The Stethoscope in Room 2
Thursday is my endoscopy day at Texas Children’s Hospital. Room 2 in the Endoscopy Suite is where I conduct my business.
If you visit Room 2 you’ll find a stethoscope hanging on the coat hook. I started scoping here in 1994 and it’s been around as long as I can remember. Every Thursday as I wash my hands I look at the stethoscope and assume that by next week it will be reunited with its rightful owner.
But it never seems to happen.
There’s an unwritten code in teaching hospitals: You don’t pick up a stethoscope that’s not your own. So it sits loyally awaiting its owner.
I’m guessing one of a couple of things about the owner of this stethoscope:
- They abandoned the stethoscope after the realization that they never really understood how to interpret its sounds.
- They chose to revert to direct auscultation (ear-to-chest listening).
- They decided just to order an echo.
Of course there’s always the chance that its owner simply left it by mistake.
Most of us here respect the code. And like an appendage of history that becomes increasingly less valuable with the passage of time, I suspect that the stethoscope in Room 2 will remain on that hook for years to come.
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That’s where I left it . . . !!!
Brian, this is one of my favorite posts … what a great moment at work.
They’re great for eliciting reflexes
It may belong to the electrophysiologist. Rumor has it they use such tools for show only. I’ve lost many; sadly, they weren’t all mine to lose.
Nice post. I am glad that Grand Rounds hasn’t slowed you up much.
I lost one like that a few years back. Maybe it’s mine, although my brief time at Texas Children’s was a couple of decades ago.
Stethoscopes these days are mostly part of a physician’s traditional regalia, like a mitre on a bishop. So somebody’s not been fully dressed for quite a while.
I once had a lovely purple stethoscope. It had my name on it, even. I was pretty lazy about putting it in my locker at the end of my shift though, and would usually just drape it over the supply closet doorknob in the unit.
I’d say it was there about 90% of the time when I’d come back for my next shift, be it the next day or a few days later.
The other 10% when it wasn’t… the Flex RN (who goes everywhere in the hospital) would invariably find it on another unit somewhere and would bring it back for me.
Until one day when even she couldn’t find it.
Now I have a pink one. Not surprisingly, it never gets taken
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