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iPod Could Help MD Students Practice Stethoscope Use

Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 at 4:30 PM - by Staff

Dr. Michael Barrett of Temple University has produced a CD that plays back the sounds of six abnormal heart conditions. According to a Time magazine article, it's part of an effort to help medical students with stethoscope use, a skill that doctors have started to lose in an age where they can simply order expensive diagnostic scans to diagnose heart problems.

A group of medical students uploaded the recordings to their iPods and used them as study aids. Dr. Barrett found that after about two hours and 3,000 playbacks, the students correctly identified 80% of the sounds on a test, up from 30% before the study session.

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Mikuro said:

member since 15 Jun 2002 with 457 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:06 pm

Sounds like just the kind of thing everyone would forget a week after they studied it, anyway. *shrug* Interesting, though.

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:20 pm

I hope the students don't turn up the stethoscope simulation too loud. Pete Townsend says doing so could damage their hearing. The The Who guitarist claims on his blog that years of loud concerts did no damage to his hearing, but that after listening to Dr. Barret's heartbeat recordings on an iPod, he developed a ringing in his ears that continues to this day.

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