<p>One can tell a physician from others by only one thing: the stethoscope. A doctor and his stethoscope are inseparable. Doctors of yesteryear made most of their diagnoses by listening to the telltale sounds of the heart through their stethoscopes.</p>.<p>Even as a child, what fascinated me and drew me to a physician was the stethoscope that clung to his neck. Behind most children’s desire to become doctors when they grow up is their attraction to the stethoscope. I never failed to look with awe at the big statue of Dr Rangachari at the entrance of General Hospital in Chennai whenever I happened to walk past it ever since I spent eight weeks there after a car accident when I was seven. What is so special to me about this statue is the stone stethoscope that the great physician of yesteryear wore on his neck.</p>.<p>When I was young, I never accepted anyone as a doctor unless he wore a stethoscope. The first to listen to my heart and chest through the stethoscope was the late Dr Gopala Ayyar, who was the only physician practicing medicine in Vishnu Kanchipuram in the fifties and sixties. He made accurate diagnoses using only his stethoscope, which he considered not just a tool of his profession but his partner in practice. I never saw him in his dispensary without wearing his stethoscope. Once asked about his attachment to stethoscopes, he said to my grandfather, a friend and former patient of his, “The stethoscope is to a doctor what the sacred thread is to a Brahmin.”</p>.<p><strong>Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/right-in-the-middle/it-s-all-relative-child-1199927.html" target="_blank">It’s all relative, child!</a></strong></p>.<p>Several years later, I had the opportunity to observe the late Dr K V Krishnaswamy, chest specialist and superintendent of the TB Sanatorium in Tambaram, where my elder brother was under treatment for lung fibrosis. During his weekly rounds, he used to spend several minutes with each of his patients, whom he examined thoroughly by pressing the chest piece of his stethoscope all over the patient’s chest and back. He never wore his stethoscope around his neck because he was dealing with a highly communicable disease. An accompanying nurse used to carry it on a tray.</p>.<p>When I was in Ernakulam, I made friends with a doctor named Dr Satyendra Kashyap, a picture of health himself. He fulfilled one of my childhood desires to touch a stethoscope. I not only touched his stethos but also listened to his good heart through them. He is somewhere in Bengaluru. My grateful salutations to him through this column. </p>.<p>The varied diagnostic tools that the advanced modern medical sciences have made available to physicians have almost rendered stethoscopes redundant. Doctors no longer seem to display a stethoscope as fondly and proudly as before. Without a stethoscope clinging to his neck or resting on his shoulder, a doctor looks like just another executive. A doctor wearing a spotless, half-sleeved white overcoat with a shining stethoscope dangling from his neck is more than a human being: He is an angel of cure and hope.</p>
<p>One can tell a physician from others by only one thing: the stethoscope. A doctor and his stethoscope are inseparable. Doctors of yesteryear made most of their diagnoses by listening to the telltale sounds of the heart through their stethoscopes.</p>.<p>Even as a child, what fascinated me and drew me to a physician was the stethoscope that clung to his neck. Behind most children’s desire to become doctors when they grow up is their attraction to the stethoscope. I never failed to look with awe at the big statue of Dr Rangachari at the entrance of General Hospital in Chennai whenever I happened to walk past it ever since I spent eight weeks there after a car accident when I was seven. What is so special to me about this statue is the stone stethoscope that the great physician of yesteryear wore on his neck.</p>.<p>When I was young, I never accepted anyone as a doctor unless he wore a stethoscope. The first to listen to my heart and chest through the stethoscope was the late Dr Gopala Ayyar, who was the only physician practicing medicine in Vishnu Kanchipuram in the fifties and sixties. He made accurate diagnoses using only his stethoscope, which he considered not just a tool of his profession but his partner in practice. I never saw him in his dispensary without wearing his stethoscope. Once asked about his attachment to stethoscopes, he said to my grandfather, a friend and former patient of his, “The stethoscope is to a doctor what the sacred thread is to a Brahmin.”</p>.<p><strong>Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/right-in-the-middle/it-s-all-relative-child-1199927.html" target="_blank">It’s all relative, child!</a></strong></p>.<p>Several years later, I had the opportunity to observe the late Dr K V Krishnaswamy, chest specialist and superintendent of the TB Sanatorium in Tambaram, where my elder brother was under treatment for lung fibrosis. During his weekly rounds, he used to spend several minutes with each of his patients, whom he examined thoroughly by pressing the chest piece of his stethoscope all over the patient’s chest and back. He never wore his stethoscope around his neck because he was dealing with a highly communicable disease. An accompanying nurse used to carry it on a tray.</p>.<p>When I was in Ernakulam, I made friends with a doctor named Dr Satyendra Kashyap, a picture of health himself. He fulfilled one of my childhood desires to touch a stethoscope. I not only touched his stethos but also listened to his good heart through them. He is somewhere in Bengaluru. My grateful salutations to him through this column. </p>.<p>The varied diagnostic tools that the advanced modern medical sciences have made available to physicians have almost rendered stethoscopes redundant. Doctors no longer seem to display a stethoscope as fondly and proudly as before. Without a stethoscope clinging to his neck or resting on his shoulder, a doctor looks like just another executive. A doctor wearing a spotless, half-sleeved white overcoat with a shining stethoscope dangling from his neck is more than a human being: He is an angel of cure and hope.</p>