Cmoy,thanks for the ideas. Well, the ones with built in noise elimination are very $$$$, and they still use the same mechanical methods for the actual "listening" of the palpitations. Also, not everyone has the $$$, students here are very well financed. RNs aren't. USD $441 (best price so far). And RNs are expected to have their own on-shift.
have a look here as an example:
www.steeles.com/catalog/3mlittelec4000.h...
And many think all should be able to use a proper mechanical stethoscope. What happens if batteries or amp fail? So some sort of mechanical/electronic hybrid seems reasonable to me. It also seems ridiculously expensive for essentially a mic capsule, a headphone amp or similar and a couple of transducers (no doubt sourced from a headphone manufacturer).
posted 02-11-2009 06:47 PM CST (US) 
