Where is Stethoscope?

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In a hot Chennai summer afternoon, I was having a headache though I was inside an air cooled room. Pain was horrible. To forget the pain, I called up my friend who is always cheerful. But when my call was picked up, what I heard was something like a bear's growling sound! Bear said, "Hello?" I was confused because I didn't know how to start a conversation with a bear, that too at that particular moment. Still I managed to utter a hello and bear replied, "Hi buddy, how are you? I'am having a severe headache. It is all due to this bloody weather. I feel as if a Hard Rock band is playing a live programme inside my head. Can I speak to you later?"

I realized it wasn’t a bear at all but my friend only. I hung up phone after asking him to take care of himself. It was little comforting that I was not the only sufferer  - very similar to a feeling we get when we find that power has not only gone in our house but in entire street! Left with nothing else to do I tried to get some sleep. But I couldn’t sleep. Finally I thought of going to a doctor. I started to analyze the pros and cons of going to hospital; where to go? How to go? How long will it take? How much money would I be shelling out of my pocket? At that time, slowly my thoughts took a turn in a bypass route and started to think about doctors.

From my childhood until recently, say 10 years, how did I recognize a doctor in a hospital? If a gentleman walks with an ornament like instrument, half circle shaped, worn around his neck like a garland - I knew he was a doctor. And that garland around his neck is known as 'Stethoscope'.

I have a liking towards Stethoscopes. To me, it is a symbol that I ‘am with a professional, who is there to help me. When a doctor wears it and touches my chest and back using that acoustic based big button shaped end and asks me to breath in and out deeply, my mind gets satisfied that – ‘here…just like that he will find out what’s wrong inside me’ and I only have to wait for a prescription.

I actually don’t know why stethoscopes are used. Based on my knowledge, it can find out my blood pressure, any cold infection etc. Somewhere I read that a ‘good doctor’ can even find lung or heart malfunctions using a stethoscope. But I don’t know and I ‘am not sure. I don’t remember where I read it - may be from a Whatsapp forward too. Therefore only doctors know when to use stethoscope and when it is not needed. That too nowadays many advanced technology based diagnosis systems are available, which are better than olden methods.

(Just like a frequent flier) I’ am a frequent visitor to hospitals. Frequent fliers get bonus points and sometimes get upgraded class too, but a frequent visitor to hospital wishes and pray for no up gradation of present status to ‘upper’ level! I hope you can understand.

While waiting in hospital, to kill time until doctor calls me, only option is to look around, to see what’s happening around me – satirically saying, to see how better I’ am or how worse I ‘am. During that time I could see some gentlemen walking slowly or briskly, neatly dressed, wearing neck ties. I initially mistook them for medical representatives – I’am sure you would have seen them waiting outside doctor’s room for a long time because doctors give importance to patients first, correctly so.

After a period of time (or after meeting one or two of those gentlemen inside their rooms) I realized they are actually doctors. And some of them are senior doctors. Of course these are corporate or big hospitals and patients come from abroad to get a better treatment. So nothing wrong in decently dressed and I don’t or can’t complain about it.

But stethoscopes were missing. A doctor may get annoyed hearing this. My humble opinion is – we don’t see them as humans. They are above normal humans to us when we suffer in pain. Patients sometimes see them as gods; each and every word a doctor says is of vital importance to a patient. Because those words don’t take normal route to head; they go through heart first and then to head. Hard to believe – check this with any patient who goes through a terminal illness.

I firmly believe on seeing a doctor with a stethoscope, wearing it on neck or holding it in hand, is much more relieving for me than a one without a stethoscope.

Kindly forgive me for my ignorance and naivety. But as a patient I believe that:

“A tie cannot replace a stethoscope to a patient’s mind”

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R.Bharathram

23 May 2018