Ball State

» Electronic stethoscope

By China at 8:46 AM

Growing up in a small town you get used to a different way of life than those who grew up in a big city. Growing up everyone knew everyone and there was one main store in town and a small pharmacy and one little small town doctor who made house calls and took care of all the people in the town and their animals too. A different world from where many of my friends come from. Dr. Stanish was by far a medical wizard. He treated everything from the diseases of childhood to the ailments of the elderly. He nearly delivered everyone of the kids in town and some of their parents too. He didn't have many of the benefits of modern technology and used a lot of old home remedies to take care of his patients. I know this may sound a little backwoods to all of you, but he really seemed to know what he was doing and many people in our town lived quite a long time because of the wonders of the Doc. He tried to get out and go to seminars and stuff, but a lot of the technology I think was well above his level of understanding and I do think that modern medical advances scared him a bit. He did have an old x-ray machine and I remember how excited he was when he got his first brand new Littmann Classic Stethoscope. How proudly he wore that thing around his neck. He would say sure there were lots of Electronic Stethoscopes on the market, but he felt that his Littmann Classic stethoscope was by far the only piece of good technology that he needed to keep the town well. A few years ago the town got a new Doc, Dr. Stanish Jr. and Dr. Stanish Sr, took some time off for fishing by the river. The younger Dr. Stanish was schooled in a more modern form of medicine, but a lot of the people still wanted old Dr. Stanish to take care of them when they were ill, and he still did. Last week, Dr. Stanish Sr. passed on to greener pastures and the town will never be the same. See these types of small town doctors really don't exist anymore, and it is a shame to loose such a brilliant medical mind. The world will go on, just differently.