Medical Equipment!

   So after our final biochem midterm yesterday (woo finally done!), our Clinic rep Alex had an awesome medical equipment demo for us at his apartment. He's been doing a really great job of setting everything up for us and trying to get us the best equipment and best deals --> I'm very impressed and glad I voted for him. So Ken from Steven's Medical Group (a great company, my Garan said he actually used to deal with them for medical equipment for his office) brought in all the Heine equipment including sphygmomanometers (blood pressure gauges and cuffs), diagnostic sets (eye and ear scopes), and stethoscope. He also brought in Littman stethoscopes and Welch Allyn sphygmomanometers, though he actually had to do it in a separate room (another rep he works with was there who exclusively shows Heine equipment, so he had to do that because of conflict of interest or something).

   I tried out everything, it was pretty cool checking out the eye and ear scopes and actually seeing everything. I was also really happy with the Littman stethoscopes --> I've tried a stethoscope before in my physiology class at Laurier, but the quality was really poor and I could barely hear anything, so it was good that the one I'm going to buy had great sound quality.

   So in the end I ended up buying the Heine diagnostic set and sphygmomanometer, the Littman Cardiology 3M stethoscope (great sound quality, bell and diaphragm for high and low frequency sounds as well as easier to use for pediatric patients), and all the extra stuff we need (reflex hammer, tuning fork, eye chart, pen light and thermometer). We only need the sphyg and stethoscope for this year, but I got a great deal buying everything at once. The original deal was if you got a Heine sphyg and diagnostic set, you'd get a free stethoscope --> I really didn't like their stethoscope and couldn't hear much, so Ken was really nice and gave me a $147 credit rather than getting the stethoscope, so it was definitely worth it in the end (though everything together cost me over $1300! Hopefully I'll use it for the rest of my life though, so then I guess it's worth getting the best stuff).

   I'm pretty excited to have my own professional equipment (which I'm sure I'll bother my family and friends with a lot when I want to practice using them). When I get them in a couple of weeks I'll definitely post some pictures of them, but for now here's a picture of the stethoscope I got:

Here's the funniest one you can get --> pink tubing with a rainbow chestpiece! I obviously didn't get this one because it may make patients find me, just a wee bit unprofessional (I think this is more for pediatric doctors). Pretty funny though!