This may sound dumb, but why do stethoscopes get lost so often?

[Spikey9001, BSN, RN]

I mean if it's around your neck the whole time, how could it "grow feet" and walk away. Also, why would you NOT be careful about a device that costs $80-300 getting out of your eyesight for more than 5 seconds?

[ashleyPNstudent]

Cause we get busy, set it down, lend it to a coworker when they forget theirs... lots of things like that!

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

Though it's still a common practice, there are good reasons for not keeping it around the neck all the time. For one, the constant contact with the oils in the skin causes wear to the tubing over time.

I actually know a guy who has had one stethoscope in over 30 years of full-time employment. He has always worn a lab coat and kept the stethoscope in his pocket. It looks like something out of a Fisher Price play set, but he likes it and at this point it's become sort of a game to him to keep it as long as possible.

I would never do the lab coat thing myself, because I get hot enough. I'm lucky that our unit has a good scope at each bedside so I don't have to worry about lugging around my own. I know I would eventually have a mental lapse.

[Moogie]

Another reason it's not a good idea to wear a stethoscope around one's neck is because it can be used to choke the wearer.

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

I don't need it to shower someone or change their dressing. And for some reason if it on my neck I can never get a IV line in! Weird! I take it off it is annoying me or if I am having a meeting. Lunch. I don't wear it when I go to the bathroom (previous job experience - fishing keys out of toilet~~ People wondered why they were so clean..... soaking in a bowl of milton :) )

So it gets left on the bathroom door peg, bottom of the dressing trolley, pt bedside ALL the time. It however had a homing instinct and I haven;t lost it (YET!)

However some people like to steal stuff not for any other reason than they can, it could be a pt, visitor or another employee. Dementia pt might like to collect stuff. Unpacked 6 bottles of Nepro from a pt bag once.

[nursel56]

Unfortunately, sometimes they get "help" walking away, just as favorite pens with name taped on, and one sock of a pair that can't be matched with anything else. I hate the feeling of a stethoscope around my neck. Bugs me.

If you set it down or lend it to a co-worker, the odds are it will be lost pretty quickly due to how busy we always are.

[Chris NS]

I mean if it's around your neck the whole time, how could it "grow feet" and walk away. Also, why would you NOT be careful about a device that costs $80-300 getting out of your eyesight for more than 5 seconds?

its not their that busy the lose it they sometimes forget it in the bathroom or actually when someone else wants to borrow it and they forget about it thats when it happens.