July 1st National Doctor's Day : Stethoscope – A symbol of Hope!

One can tell a physician from others from only one thing. And that one thing is the stethoscope. A doctor and his stethoscope are inseparable. Doctors of yesteryear made most of their diagnosis by listening to the tell-tale sounds of our organs through their stethoscopes.

The varied diagnostic tools which the advanced modern medical science made available to physicians, has almost rendered stethoscopes redundant. Even as a child what fascinated and drew me to a physician was the stethoscope that clung to his neck.

Behind most children’s desire to become a doctor when they grow up is their attraction to the stethoscope. I never failed to look with awe at the big statue of Dr. Rangachari at the entrance of General Hospital Chennai... whenever I happened to walk past it ever since I spent eight weeks there after a car accident when I was seven.

What is so special to me in this statue is the stone stethoscope which the great physician of yesteryear wore on his neck. When I was young I never accepted anyone as a doctor unless he wore a stethoscope. First to listen to my heart and chest through the stethoscope was Late Dr.Gopala Ayyar who was the only physician practicing medicine in Vishnu Kanchipuram in the fifties and sixties.

He made accurate diagnoses by listening through his stethoscope which he considered not just as a tool of his profession but as his partner in practice. I never saw him in his dispensary without wearing his stethoscope.

Several years later I had the opportunity to observe the late Dr. K.V. Krishnaswamy Chest Specialist and Superintendent of T.B. Sanatorium Tambaram when my elder brother was undergoing treatment for lung fibrosis. During his weekly rounds he used to spend several minutes with each of his patients whom he examined thoroughly pressing the chest piece of his stethoscope all over the patient's chest and back.  Since he was dealing with a highly communicable disease he never hung his stethoscope around his neck. An accompanying nurse used to carry it on a tray.

When I was in Ernakulam, I made friends with a doctor named Dr. Satyendra Kashyap -a fine gentleman and a picture of health himself. He fulfilled one of my childhood desires to touch a stethoscope. I not only touched his stethos but also listened to his good heart through it.

With a number of diagnostic tools available for doctors to lean on now, they no longer seem to find it necessary to display a stethoscope as fondly and proudly as before. But without a stethoscope clinging to his neck or resting on his shoulder a doctor looks like just another executive.

A doctor wearing a speck less half sleeved white over coat with a shining stethoscope dangling from his neck is more than a human being. He is an angel of cure and hope!