No Auscultation Last Dr Visit!

I’ve come down with laryngitis & I’ve had a sore throat on & off. I also had some tightness in my chest & my asthma usually gets worse with these things. On Friday morning I was able to get an appt at my primary care’s office & got the last spot available & it was with the other nurse practitioner. (I usually see the other one who’s more experienced & more thorough.

Anyway when she comes in to examine me, she’s not even wearing her stethoscope! She looked in my ears, saw they were congested & then down my throat. She had me lie down & pressed in my abdomen & that was it!

I was perturbed; not so much because of my fetish (she’s always auscultated over my shirt anyway); but because of something that may have been missed! I hope this doesn’t turn into a respiratory infection & have to make another trip there.

Anyone else go in with a cold or sinus infection & they skip the auscultation?

Not exactly the same, but close.

Two years ago i was in the hospital to do an little operation.

Two times i was called in to nurses an doctors to do an exam and healthcheck before my operation.

Non of these ended with a chestpiece on my body. The second time i was called in to the office, it was only a female doctor and me. But i could not find a stethoscope in the room. She only asked me on how my heart and lungs was. For the time in my life, i hoped she would auscultate me. But she did not.

I had my operation, and could go home the same day. But without having a chestpiece on my body.

I haven’t been auscultated by a doctor in years. I must also add that I haven’t been to one in quite some time time too, but every time I went, it was just a couple of questions and maybe a look in the throat. That’s all. Timely restriction won’t allow them to do proper exams, I suppose.

That is becoming and real trend in modern medicine. Less and less diagnostic value placed on stethoscope exams.

At my doctor - never.

I had a follow-up for some blood-work a couple weeks ago and he still took a quick listen.

Both my primary and gynecological doctors have always done a thorough job on auscultations. I've not encountered, thus far, a doctor skipping that part of an exam that I can recall.

What a shame! Though I agree that new diagnostic tests can measure more than the physical, an exam should always start with the doctor's touch and instinctual feel. Maybe my lack of knowledge, I just hate to see the intimate "touch" in an exam that allows the doctor to utilize their own instinctual "feel" and observations, go extinct.

Though new technological advances are great, there's nothing like the physical touch.

Example, my love of reading and books: nothing beats the feel and touch and smell of an actual book in hand as opposed to reading one on a nook....it's not personal, intimate, etc.

Well, no, there was no such thing....The doctor's ABC is to check the heart and lungs...sometimes even those doctors who are not responsible for these organs listen....

I would have asked her to check that. I would have said something like, "Can you check my lungs." Yes that is unfortunate. Not sure I've ever had that happen where I had sinus trouble and they failed to check my lungs.

With your symptoms they should have done the auscultation. I hear it happens more often where the tests are ordered without examining the patient. More so in the emergency room. I remember one patient 35 yo who underwent CTA of the chest, EKG, lab tests and ECHO for chest pain. She had typical costochondritis. A good clinical examination would have avoided all the unnecessary tests and exposure to radiation and IV contrast dye.

I'm usually stethed if I got to the doctors with any form of chest complaint. I've got my asthma review in a couple of weeks so hopefully it's the same there and she takes a listen.

@stethoscopelover I'm the same, I'm fortunate in that if I go to the docs with any form of chest or tummy complaint they'll want a listen to me on bare skin (and I'm happy to take my shirt off for them!).

This is a somewhat different angle, but still on point I believe. I read an article…And this was probably 5 years ago. It said that due the imaging and diagnostic capabilities we now possess, the stethoscope was almost obsolete at the higher levels. The cardiologist for example. The closer the examination is of the heart itself, the less the stethoscope is necessary is how I took it. This doesn’t really relate to going in with a chest cold to your primary, but things to come, perhaps?