Field notes: An unusual way to use a stethoscope.

Getty Images/skaman306

Confession: I think stethoscopes are overrated. Yes, they are occasionally helpful, but mostly they are useless relics and are more costume than anything else. (Also, they probably should have been banned early in the Covid-19 pandemic. But that’s for another time.)

Recently, I used a stethoscope to clinch an unusual diagnosis…and I didn’t even have to put it on.