A reader asks the question regarding how to listen to breath sounds.
Great question. Now here is your answer. Your doc is too busy to wait for you to exhale. I suggest next time you make a loud sucking sound as you inhale so your doc can't hear anything. It will keep his/her attention long enough to listen to you exhale. And also to wonder what the hell that sound was on inhalation. I guarantee he/she asks you to take another breath.
The art of diversion.
I often find when you ask a pt to take a deep breath when auscultating, or tell them to breath in and out, they inhale and hold their breath far too long, like you asked them to hold their breath or something. Then I actually have to tell them to exhale. I often tell them to breath in and out as they normally do, because I encouter this so frequently.
ReplyDeleteAaarrgggg! I caught myself doing this yesterday! Must smack myself in forehead with stethoscope and wait for the exhale.
ReplyDeleteCause its only a Kabuki act, to pretend they're doing something, just like I palpate the abdomen pretending to measure your liver when you could have Bin-Laden hidden under that 8 inches of fat and I wouldn't notice...
ReplyDelete1: if they can talk they have an airway and a systolic of at least 90mm Hg...lets see that takes care of A,B, and C...
the same problem is auscultating heart sounds for 2 seconds......
ReplyDeleteHeart ascultation, is difficult, you need to understand well physiology and are used to normal and abnormal sounds, stethoscopes arent made for lungs.
ReplyDeletewould you hear 3r or 4r with what part of the stethoscope? what about clicks, hemiblocks, particular sounds, pulmonary hipertension?
Update: I'm the anonymous question-asker. So I went to the doctor this week, and I got up on the table for him to listen to my lungs. The second or third breath triggered a noisy rattlely cough that I could not suppress. So the doctor took his stethoscope away, and I never got a chance to demonstrate my wheezing for him because he never resumed listening to my lungs. He had something he wanted to say.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you know....the rest of the story.
Next time you see your doctor just ask the physician your question about how they don't wait for you to exhale and that you would like to know why;that is if it bothers you that much. The provider might present a simple explaination, such as maybe all the neceassary assessment data was already collected by the time he/she was done listening. Once you have listened to a thousand sets of diseased lungs, it's not rocket science to figure out whats going on.
ReplyDelete