Okay,
As far as stethescopes go I recommend getting at good one. You will be learning on it for years. When you are training your ears to hear the various intracacies of heart sounds, you do not want to handicap yourself with an instrument that makes it harder to hear certain parts of the frequency range. There is a difference between many of them in audio quality. No offense, but nurses and respiratory therapists have quite different uses of scopes than physicians. Listening to lungs and pulses is easy, in terms of the frequency range and fidelity demanded of the scope. The cardio stuff is what you will wish you had a good scope for. If have the oportunity to listen to a variety of them in a quiet environment, I promise you will hear a difference between the $50 models and the $150 dollar models. Go to a medical bookstore and try them out.
At CCOM most people bought either a Littmann Cardiology 3 or a Cardiology Master. You should pay no more than $160 and $180 for them, respectively. If you do, you are getting ripped off. Hewlitt Packard makes a very good one too. I hated the Tycos-Welch Allyn scopes-they pick up way too much room noise for me-but some people swear by them.
Rule of thumb when buying one:1) a double lumen is a must have, it is okay if it is a double lumen single tube, but single lumen offer inferior sound quality.2) make sure it is comfortable (ear pieces aim forward)
Diagnostic kits (ie. ophthalmoscope/otoscope, etc.) should cost no more than $350. Get a Welch-Allyn. You may not need this in your first year, so check it out before you buy. If you are going to CCOM, you will need a stethescope by the end of your first quarter and a Dx kit by the beginning of your second.
Johan Aasbo
MS-1 CCOM
