A SCOPE OF AN INSTRUMENT

Mind you, I have been around for a very long time. I am some 200 years old, French in origin. I came into existence out of man’s sheer quest for invention in science and technology. Although I was a crude stuff like a hearing trumpet, if Wikipedia is to be believed, over the years I have made an impressive evolution. If not in purpose at least in terms of sophistication. That’s my history in short.
Hanging around a doctor’s neck, I have the pleasure and pain to witness varying experiences of suffering and agony. It is a pretty horrible job, no refuting that. But experience has been a good teacher. I have done this for ages, almost for two centuries now, and I have grown indifferent over time.
Before I forget, my memory isn’t too good (age does catch up), let me introduce myself. I am Stethoscope, that instrument doctors plug into their ears to feel your heartbeat.  So, there you go. I am an instrument designed to feel the inner workings of a human body. I tell you, I am just a medium as I can’t interpret or understand the meanings of the sounds.
But at times, I feel, the heartbeats have an effect on me, going by the way I have started to feel different emotions. Moments of pain, suffering, and happiness. Happiness, at the time of birth of a new born. It is a miracle. Life.
Yet again, dragged into the normal humdrum duties of every day, life can be so boring. It is a clash between long endless queues of patients and overworked doctors. No wonder, doctors get it wrong at times. Blame the faulty equipment. Poor fellows.
I recall one of the incidents which I thought was not fair, not from a Stethoscope’s point of view.  A few years back, I was hanging in around a doctor’s shoulders, while he talked to a seven year old girl. After running a few tests, the doctor admitted the sick girl at the hospital. Her veins were pierced by needle and connected to pipes that fed fluid to her fragile body. She was in lot of pain.
After three months, she was discharged. It was only a mere infection. She did not have a hole in her heart. Wrong diagnosis. It happens. This is part of the medical history. How many would have died because doctors made a mistake during a critical operation?
There are also times when doctors are at the receiving end for no fault of their own. One time, a rowdy group of men, seemed like relatives of a deceased, charged the doctors, even threatening vengeance and lawsuits. That was uncalled for. Surgeons do their best but often death is too powerful.
Any ways, a little break from the morbid stuff of life, let me share you a secret. I am a feeler, I feel different parts of a human body! I am sure other instruments envy me. That’s the brighter side of the story. I connect to a body and in its internal workings. I feel the beat that keeps life going. That special sound without which there is no life.