Bare chest auscultation

I grew up being stethed bare chested but in recent years it's been over my shirt, even the cardio doesn't ask me to take off my shirt. In play exams, it's always bare chest and I can tell the difference. I don't know how a doctor can get a good listen to a woman's heart without exposing her breasts. One woman I stethed was 22 at the time. She said I was the first one to see her breasts and the first to steth her bare chested since she was elementary school age. Does your doctor steth you bare chested?

I agree, I don't get how the doctor can listen properly over clothes it should be on bare skin.

If the doctor says they want to listen to my breathing, chest or tummy it's just an automatic reaction from me to take my shirt off for them so they can listen to me bare chested.

My current doctor also listens over my shirt but when I was examining patients when I was in practice I always listened on bare skin. We were taught in my physical diagnosis class in medical school that listening through clothing severely degraded what you could hear. The art is being lost!

Very much a lost art. If there is any patient history or complaints just order an echo. No one cares to be proficient at auscultation anymore.

Seriously, I really don't know the procedure to be stethed over the shirt and not bare chested, independent if it is/was a male or female doc. It is also definitely not really common in our country/region. Even in my childhood I was always asked to pull off my shirt as soon as the auscultation started.

But, I saw this a few times on pics and on TV, maybe from different regions/cultures and/or for embarrassing reasons.

I tried it once for my curiosity but seriously, for me it will remain a mystery how a respectable working professional doc will come to his findings.