I bet I haven't been percussed anywhere in....Geez. Twenty five years. So far as my experience goes, it's as if it is not part of their fact finding mission anymore. As a child, I remember being percussed at almost every visit. My abdomen sticks more in memory than back, but I'm sure my lungs were percussed as well.
Speaking of a forgotten technique, I read somewhere not long ago that the use of a stethoscope for diagnostic purposes has near run it's course. No joke....Imaging has gotten so good and presumably in-expensive...with the prospect of those two factors only getting, better, more available, etc., many would say right now, they do not need their stethoscope. Being a hard core, near life long Cardiophile, that makes me feel........I don't know. Not good. I'm really not worried about them disappearing from around the necks of all those cute little nurses. Even catching one draped over some hotties rearview mirror as we pass in town. Granted...and I know I'm not the only one here....She might be butt ugly, all I saw was the stethoscope on her rearview and enough hair to be female. And thats all the information I need. Automatically, Miss. hit every limb on the way down has become a fetish object. Also, lets not forget about the pinnacle of hotness...The female physician. The one that is in her 40's and looks great. Stethoscope and lab coat or not. Hair pulled back, black Littman over her neck. White, heavily starched lab coat....Booiiinggggg....That sounds horrible. It's true. Where was I?
It seems the practice of not actually needing a stethoscope would for now, anyway, really only apply at the highest levels of specialty and expertise. I tell myself that anyway. It will be many, many, many years before something that can do so much in so little time, at a one time, reasonable cost will be replaced. My thinking anywho. Terribly sorry to get off topic. I did figure some here might want to hear that scary bit of information.