A cardiology stethoscope is designed for doctors and nurses in the field of cardiology and cardiovascular surgery. It has a shorter tube, thicker tubing, and a heavier earpiece for better sound transmission and quality. It allows for the identification of specific heart sounds and murmurs, and is more expensive than a regular stethoscope.
A cardiology stethoscope is a stethoscope specially designed for use by doctors and nurses in the field of cardiology and cardiovascular surgery. Its design allows a greater ability to hear both low and high frequency sounds, necessary as those who study the heart in this discipline and also need to hear the pumping of liquid blood through the four chambers and four valves of the heart . A regular stethoscope is designed to allow the user to listen to the internal workings of the body, such as a heartbeat, a pulse in an extremity, a bowel sound, or fluid in the lungs. A heart stethoscope allows the user to hear and identify specific heart sounds such as clicks, murmurs, and rubs.
Design, performance and quality separate a regular stethoscope from a cardiology stethoscope. Compared to a regular stethoscope, a cardiology stethoscope has a thicker and much shorter tube between the earpieces and the diaphragm, the round knob at the end of this instrument. This shorter distance for sound to travel and thicker tubing for better transmission allow the user to auscultate or hear a wider variety of body sounds. The shorter tubing of this style of stethoscope also avoids a problem common to longer length regular stethoscopes: interference of clear auscultation caused by the curled tubing rubbing against itself as it coils if not taut.
A cardiology stethoscope also has a heavier, better-designed earpiece that is usually more comfortable to use than a regular stethoscope. Earplugs are larger and thicker to seal out ambient noise during auscultation. The round diaphragm is usually made of stainless steel as opposed to the plastic diaphragm of a regular stethoscope. These design features also work to improve sound transmission and the quality of cardiac acoustics.
The acoustics of cardiology are often subtle and require a lot of time and practice to master. In addition to the da-dum of each heartbeat – formally referred to as S1 and S2 – there are other sounds such as hums, clicks and rubs. The commonly known term heart murmur refers to an actual sound heard when valves malfunction and blood leakage is audible with the use of a cardiology stethoscope. The degree of auscultation by a trained healthcare professional using this type of equipment allows murmurs to be classified along a continuum from one to four.
Heart stethoscopes are expensive. The purchase price for one averages around $160 US Dollars (USD) while an inexpensive stethoscope can be purchased for as little as $10 USD. Name engraving on the stainless steel diaphragm is often offered for this type of stethoscope in order to prevent intentional theft or even inadvertent mix-ups between similar looking instruments.
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