科学美国人60秒 SSS 2014-03-06（在线收听）

During the physical examine, doctors pick up blood from thepatients including that patient's bacteria. To keep infection from spreading,physicians try to always wash their hands between examines. But they don'talways scrub their stethoscopes. To see just how much bacteria this equipment gather,doctors examined 71 patients using stethoscopes and gloves. After each examine,researchers collected samples from the stethoscope surface and tube, as well asfour parts of the physicians' glove hands: the finger tips, backs and two locationson the palms. The finger tips became by far the most bacteria contaminated. Butthe with the stethoscope surface which gather more microbes than the palms orthe backs of hand. This study is in Clinic Proceedings. Although finger tipspicked up more than five times as much bacterium stethoscope did, doctorsreduced that contamination before seeing the next patient by cleaning theirhands. According to this study authors, stethoscopes should get the sametreatment. Then the only thing to fear is the stethoscopes’ icy temperature.