PITTSBURGH, PA – Dr. Harry Bonecutter, a prominent orthopedic surgeon at Pittsburgh Health, identified a strange noise emanating from a patient which he could not identify.  The incident occurred in his office during a routine preoperative visit for a total knee replacement.  Typically Dr. Bonecutter would forego using a stethoscope, but now patient satisfaction surveys asks patients, did the physician listen to the heart and lungs?

“I found my stethoscope under a pile of muscle magazines and big league chew.  I hadn’t used it in years,” said Bonecutter.  “When I placed the stethoscope somewhere near the patient’s heart, I heard a very strange sound.  I immediately called in the Striker rep to help identify the sound since this was out of my field of expertise.”

The rep made a few suggestions that it could be heart sounds and did help confirm that the patient had a regular heartbeat.  Surprisingly, the reps are called in more frequently than you might have thought.

“Yeah, sometimes they call us in for food recommendations, or in the morning to pick out a tie, or if they need general advice on life,” said rep Jim Tysons.

“At first we just made recs for hardware during surgery, but then the orthopods started using us for anything.”