There are two I'd have trouble choosing between. I've talked about one of them before, and lately I've been thinking a lot about the second one, so here it is.
I had to go to hospital for an operation when I was 9. The first good memory was the pre-hospital check-up. The second is the day I went in for the operation itself. There was an anaesthetist who I remembered from a previous visit when I was 7 to have my tonsils out (strange, I don't have any auscultation memories from that visit though I'm sure it must have happened.) This anaesthetist was from India, and spoke English perfectly with an accent and voice that I can still remember to this day. He was the one doing the rounds that morning looking at patients before their operations and I actually felt really reassured that he would be there again because the first time I was really nervous about not waking up from it, but I had and he'd been the one who'd done it to me.
Anyway, I think he might have recognised me, even though he looked at the chart for my name and said ‘Hello Alex, is it possible that we have met? Yes? You have been in hospital before?’ and I just nodded and was about to explain and then he smiled and said ‘Very good! May I listen to your chest?’ So good little patient that I was, I pulled up my shirt for him. I was lying down on my bed but sort of halfway to sitting up because they gave me lots of pillows, as if perhaps preparing me for being examined like this.
Now, here's the thing: I actually wasn't really expecting to have the doctor use a stethoscope on me because I didn't remember it happening last time like I said, but I remember feeling two things: how cool it was that this doctor I remembered was doing this to me, and how embarrassing it felt, because my dad was there and I wished it was my mum, who'd already seen me get a boner at having a stethoscope on my chest a few weeks before that at the pre-op check. But it didn't matter, because I soon realised my dad wasn't really looking at me being examined, he was reading a newspaper, and I just thought ‘Cool, keep doing that and don’t look!' I like to think maybe he knew I didn't mind going to the doctor and didn't need him watching everything, and the best way of not embarrassing his kid was to be there but not really be there all at once.
The anaesthetist started by listening to my heart, and I managed not to complain about how cold the stethoscope was (they really were back then in the 90's!) and then my breathing on the right, then back to the left, didn't ask me to take deep breaths but just let me lie there breathing normally. Then when I thought he was probably finished because it was quite a thorough listen, he said ‘Okay, all sounds good, would you sit up for me please?’ and he held my shirt up with one hand and then listened to my back as well. All the while I was sitting there with a tent in my pants under the blanket and hoping it didn't show. I actually don't think it did. Then the doctor said ‘Okay Alex would you breathe deeply for me?’ and that's when I felt really excited. He only listened to 5 or 6 deep breaths, but wow it felt good!
The other reason I like this memory is because the operation I was in for was basically to get snipped, because I had that condition where the foreskin didn't retract and my GP had said it was bad enough that I wouldn't grow out of it. I can still remember how much getting that boner HURT when the anaesthetist listened to my chest. I'd always found that when I really got excited down there it could hurt, but never realised it wasn't normal until it got noticed that I needed surgery for it, I think that was after I got an infection. Getting snipped was worth it to get that memory of being a quirky, easily aroused kid who basically discovered his medical fetish at an early age but didn't understand it. I didn't really care to, a doctor listening to me when I was actually healthy was even cooler than the times I'd gone to the doctor with a cough before. Dad didn't even look at me holding my shirt up let alone see me shifting the blankets to hide what was happening underneath them, so all was good.
Thank God I didn't need listening to after the operation, that would have KILLED. I definitely didn't enjoy recovering from the rest, but I was a very happy patient before it all! Sadly, that was the last time I remember having a stethoscope used on me until I was in my mid twenties at a medical for work related reasons, and that next time all those years later really disappointed me. I think I'm that attached to this memory as it's really my last good one. No wonder I feel like a big kid every time I look at a stethoscope and get warm fuzzy feelings nowadays!