Though doctors may disinfect their hands to prevent spreading illness, there may be another bacteria-ridden object they have on them that doesn't get the same cleaning treatment: their stethoscopes. A ...

Although healthcare workers' hands are the main source of bacterial transmission in hospitals, physicians' stethoscopes appear to play a role. To explore this question, investigators assessed the ...

In recent years, it's become painfully clear to everyone working in medicine that frequent hand washing is crucial to stopping the spread of infection in hospital settings. Nowadays, every hospital ...

Docs Should Wash Stethoscopes between Patients, Too Tests for bacteria found that stethoscopes picked up more microbes from patients than did most parts of the doc's hands. Sophie Bushwick reports ...

Two centuries after its invention, the stethoscope — the very symbol of the medical profession — is facing an uncertain prognosis. It is threatened by hand-held devices that are also pressed against ...

Credit a modest 19th-century Parisian doctor for having invented the stethoscope. In 1816, while examining a female patient with heart disease, Dr. René Laennec faced a conundrum: He needed to hear ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. (CBS News) Though doctors may disinfect ...