Fig. 1: Traditional (left) and “cool” (right) placements of the stethoscope when not in use.

It’s CMAJ week on NCBI ROFL! All this week we’ll be featuring articles from the Canadian Medical Association Journal’s holiday issues. Enjoy!

“Objective: To determine whether the “cool” or circumcervical placement of the stethoscope when not in use is as efficacious as the traditional placement in terms of transfer time to the functional position.

Methods: Measurement of time taken by 100 health care professionals in each group to transfer stethoscope to functional position.

Results and interpretation: The cool group was much slower than the traditional group, despite their younger years. This wasted time could translate into a substantial financial burden on Canada’s health care system.”

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