Does your doctor really know how to use a stethoscope or palpate your abdomen? Today’s physicians do not have the physical exam skills that our predecessors did. We can argue if this truth has diminished medical quality – I’m not sure that it has. But it has completely changed how medicine today is practiced. The reason for declining physician exam skills is that technology has largely supplanted physicians’ hands, eyes and ears. In the olden days, the stethoscope was the diagnostic tool for examining hearts. I spent a month as a medical student with a legendary cardiologist who could make all kinds of cardiac diagnoses right at the bedside using 2 advanced medical instruments known as ears. Surgeons and gastroenterologists in years past had to make diagnoses of acute appendicitis and other abdominal emergencies based on feel and their ‘gut’. Neurologists made accurate diagnoses of stroke just using their clinical skills. An Advanced Medical Instrument
MD Whistleblower presents vignettes and commentaries on the medical profession. We peek 'behind the medical curtain' and deliver candor and controversy in every post.