Stethoscopes too another enduring analog machine is set to meet its digital future

Stethoscopes too another enduring analog machine is set to meet its digital future

If technology has its way, a ubiquitous symbol of the medical profession – the stethoscope – may soon face competition if not irrelevance. For nearly two centuries stethoscopes have helped doctors listen to heart and lung sounds to diagnose a weak heart condition or obstructive lung disease. Unlearning the habit of hanging the stethoscope around the neck for quick plugging into their ears will take some getting used to for doctors. Instead handhelds like a smartphone, ultrasound scanner, and digital stethoscope could soon weigh down their whitecoat pockets.

Handheld digital stethoscopes that connect wirelessly to smartphones and upload heart murmurs to a cloud where artificial intelligence-based algorithms detect anomalies by poring through thousands of patient records are being tested. Handheld ultrasound scanners that produce visualisations of the heart and valves on a smartphone or tablet device are already here. When one can see too, why only listen? If such technology can net rare or faint murmurs and abnormal rhythms besides helping doctors watch cardiac motions, patients will certainly not mind.

Yet a debate is certain to ensue. It takes doctors years to blank out other noises and train their ears to the sounds and murmurs of the body. With technology doing the task of listening, analysing and reporting an ailment, one may ask: are they helping physicians or replacing them? Even surgeons using surgical robots will mull over this troubling thought. For now, prices associated with the new technologies keeps human interface, knowledge and skills relevant. Losing some knowhow and gaining others, fashioning new machines and junking others has been a constant feature of human evolution. The stethoscope could become an accoutrement like the clunky typewriter, calculator, radio, torchlight and alarm clock of yore – all lodged today in a smartphone. There is but one certainty: the march of technology has many more surprises in store.