Idiotic article. The value of a stethoscope comes not from the low-tech, lo-fi sounds that it picks up, but from the enormous knowledge base built up over hund

Idiotic article. The value of a stethoscope comes not from the low-tech, lo-fi sounds that it picks up, but from the enormous knowledge base built up over hundreds of years and billions of examinations that allows a doctor to diagnose, say, mitral valve insufficiency, or pleural effusion, instantly. By themselves, a muffled "whoosh" at a particular point in the cardiac cycle, or a particular kind of "rub" while breathing, mean nothing whatsoever. Any modern imaging technology could outperform the glorified tube of the stethoscope easily. However, since we have built up an enormous database of clinical experience, it gives us a powerful ability to interpret otherwise useless sounds in a way that outperforms newer technologies for speed, efficiency, accessibility, and reliability. If you arrive in ER with a pneumothorax, for example, you had better hope that there is someone waiting for you with a stethoscope to confirm the absence of breath sounds on the affected side. Even a handheld ultrasound may not be fast enough to get you a chest tube before you are irreversibly dead.