 Hi, welcome to nursing school explained in this video on how to select the status scope. Now there's a big variety of status scope out there in terms of variety in price as well as the quality. So here I have four status copes I'm going to show you so you can find the best one that will work for you. So starting with this, this is the probably one of the least expensive status copes that comes in this box. Typically it's called a general exam status scope. This is one that you will a lot of times find in the clinical setting in an isolation room. This is kind of like one that will stay in the room and will be reused by providers of course and cleaned in between. As you can tell the material is probably more on the lower end. The ear pieces that come there kind of hard, although it does come with another set that you can switch on their software ear pieces. So that will be a personal preference. This is not the best quality status scope and I would not recommend this for clinical if this is your first clinical rotation because you really want to be able to hear what's going on with the patient and start identifying different sounds, especially lung bowel sounds and all those good things. Now number two here is this dual stethoscope, which has two tubes here, two of these flexible tubes and then it also has the bell and the diaphragm here that are reversible. This one comes also with the more hard ear pieces, but I'm sure you could switch them out as well. What I don't really don't like about this is the double tubing because there is a chance that this might rub against each other, the tubing against each other and so then you can pick up some extra noise or have some extra background noise that is not desirable to really identify patient sounds. Now over here, and I have to say that I'm pretty jaded here because I've only been using Littman stethoscopes in my entire nursing career and this is the one that I've had for probably 15 years. This is a very typical Littman reversible stethoscope. It's called the classic two and so you can reverse from the bell to the diaphragm here. It comes with the softer ear pieces and it has the flexible tubing. It's pretty lightweight and it is a really good quality stethoscope. In terms of a price, it probably will run you somewhere between like 80 to 90 dollars depending on where you buy it. But I would recommend this for general uses. I've used it through my clinical rotation in school and then as a nurse myself. Now fourth here, I have this also Littman stethoscope. This is called the master of cardiology stethoscope. This stethoscope is a little bit different. You can see it does not have the reversible piece here for the bell and the diaphragm use and the way to use this is to have contact with the skin. If you were going to use the bell, you were going to use just slight contact, although you need to have full contact with the entire surface. And then for higher pitch sounds, then you wanted to press the stethoscope a little bit more against the skin so it kind of picks up those lower pitches. Of course, this also comes with the more flexible ear pieces. It has a single tube, but this will probably run you somewhere above 200 dollars. So I don't know that I would recommend this for a beginning nursing student. This is maybe something that you might want to think about if you go into continuing your career as a nurse practitioner, advanced practice nurse in any kind of capacity. The Littman, the reversible one, the one that I recommended, that's a really good quality stethoscope that will last you for years, is probably somewhere between 80 and 90 dollars, where the dual one is probably a little bit on the less expensive side, 20 to 30 dollars, and then the most inexpensive one is probably somewhere around 10 to 12 dollars. So you can tell the more you pay, the better the quality stethoscope you'll get. And you do want to invest in it, but you also don't need to break the bank. So before you start buying a stethoscope, make sure that you check your budget and you see what's right for you. There might be sales depending on if the companies currently have a sales going on. Also on other shopping sites, they might have sales going on. So find what's right for you. And like I said, I would recommend the medium quality stethoscope, it'll last you for years. One more tidbit, Littman has a very good repair policy, so if something goes wrong with the stethoscope, you can send it in and they will fix it or replace it. Thanks so much for watching this video. Also check out my other video on the different parts of the stethoscope and how to use it. And I'll see you soon right here at Nursing School Explained. Thanks for watching.