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Cheapest place to buy stethoscope

Hi,

I'm a medical student about to go into second year, when we're doing cardio and resp so figure I should get a stethoscope!

I figure this is the stethoscope everybody gets:
http://www.medisave.co.uk/diagnostics-equipment/littmann-stethoscopes/classic-ii-se-stethoscope.html

Just wondering where's the cheapest place to buy a stethoscope?

Reply 1

ImaginarydreamX

There that expensive ? :eek:

Maybe have a look online through google shopping, I'm sure theyre only like £10 - £20..

Reply 2

Clip

Original post by ImaginarydreamX

There that expensive ? :eek:

Maybe have a look online through google shopping, I'm sure theyre only like £10 - £20..

I would suggest that as a general strategy for a medical career, choosing diagnostic equipment on the basis of price alone may have some drawbacks.

Reply 3

Beska

Original post by Crystal_Heart

Are you a BMA member? If you joined BMA in Freshers' then you'd get a voucher for a cheaper steth that you can use on Medisave. If you're not a member yet I suspect if you sign up at your Freshers' Fair or whatever you'll get a voucher then, if you're already a member then I think you'll just need to buy it for the 45 quid or whatever it costs.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 4

345rty

Whilst I do like the littmann soft ear pieces I wouldn't buy one of their steths. The trick to comfort in the ear department is apparently using boil and bite mouthguards to make your own custom moulded ear peices (which also stops people pinching your tubes). Something I keep meaning to do but haven't got round to yet.

Whatever you get will float around in the bottom of your bag collecting grime, sand, and occasionally being tugged out by the hose. Once the ends come off they never sound the same, and the membranes suffer also.

The most clarity of any I have used comes from one of my grandfather's old ones that he was given but never removed from the box [testing that one on myself was the first time I ever heard S2 splitting, clear as day. Not the first time I had auscultated myself by any stretch of the imagination]. I've left that in the box for another day. The drug company freebie ones are the mainstay of my use, but when the last one fell apart I did by one of the sprague rappaport knockoffs recommended by the following review and have been very pleased (even more so for under a tenner). The sound is surprisingly good but I have had to superglue the ear pieces in place after they remained in my ear canal on a couple of occasions (makes for a fun remainder of the consultation).

Don't touch the single sided nurses ones, the ITU patients seem to get one each to reduce infection transfer and they are horrid.

http://www.forusdocs.com/reviews/Acoustic_Stethoscope_Review.htm

If you plan on looking after it like a ming vase then the littmann cardiology stuff is remarkably pleasant, but for medical school use I would go cheap and be prepared to replace as needed. Get an expensive one when you can claim it against tax.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 5

345rty

An addendum might be to try and use other peoples tubes regularly, the last time I replaced mine I thought I was just rusty and struggling to differentiate sounds until the GP I was with insisted I try his tubes as the patient was, it turns out, absolute barn door stuff.

That set was a drug company gift Littmann knockoff, which had blown my socks off in comparison to the previous one I was using which had been fine when new but lost its edge over a couple of years. In future I shall plan to replace every two years rather than keep going till I can't hear a thing. The alternative would be to take better care of them which should be easier after graduation when they don't have to be squeezed into a pocket between reasonably infrequent uses.

One of my peers had some tubes that seemed to pick up fine creps better than the ones I used at the time (though her tubes were crap for lower sounds), having heard them through their tubes it was then somewhat easier to spot them through mine.