I found it while rummaging through the contents of drawer I emptied from my desk at Baycrest Geriatric Centre, the place I retired from after forty-four years. It had been in many desks at Baycrest, as I moved from a young staff internist, soon to become a certified geriatrician, to program director of the novel acute care unit, to finally being appointed as the head of Geriatrics and Internal Medicine.

I can’t recall exactly but I think that it was sent to me: a renowned Sprague-Rappaport (SR) stethoscope, by my parents while I was in medical school at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, Dundee campus. While in medical school, I recall that one of my favorite clinicians came to the ward one day with a marvelous new stethoscope, sleek and lightweight, a far cry from the standard two-tube single headed standard stethoscopes that had not changed for many decades.