The stethoscope may be listening to its own last, lingering wheeze.
Two hundred years after its invention, the humble, iconic symbol of medicine risks becoming obsolete, squeezed out by upstart, miniaturized, palm-sized ultrasound devices that allow doctors to instantly visualize the heart’s structure and function.
Some doctors have already written its obituary (“The stethoscope’s 200th anniversary should also be its funeral,” American cardiologist Eric Topol tweeted this year, while journal articles ask, “Celebration, or cremation?”)
Others are pleading for the gadget’s revival, arguing the stethoscope remains as valuable a diagnostic tool today as it was two centuries ago and that its demise would spell an end to the “art and romance” of the physical exam.