For years the dangling stethoscope has been the symbol of the physician. But just how reliable a piece of equipment is it? Cardiologist Dale Groom at the Medical College of South Carolina has long suspected that many a faulty diagnosis comes from faulty equipment. To prove it, he ran a check on the 33 stethoscopes used by his Charleston colleagues at Medical College Hospital, found his suspicions confirmed. Two-thirds of the stethoscopes were defective. The doctors using them would be almost as well off with a rolled-up sheet of paper—which is just what the stethoscope was when first conceived by French...
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