Nurse anesthesia program requirements for esophageal/precordial stethoscope earpieces: a survey

Student nurse anesthetists are often required to purchase an auscultatory earpiece device for use in the clinical setting. Although the device is required, students have observed that many anesthesia providers in the clinical setting no longer use this piece of equipment. The purpose of this project was to determine the number of anesthesia programs that required mandatory purchase of the auscultatory earpiece by student nurse anesthetists. A brief survey was developed to collect data from the directors of all 105 accredited nurse anesthesia programs in the United States. The survey was completed by 63 (60%) of the program directors, and 62 completed surveys were used in the analysis. Results revealed that 95% of the responding nurse anesthesia programs (59 of 62) require esophageal/ precordial stethoscope earpieces for their students, but 46% (27) of those programs provide the earpieces. Most (76%) of the programs required the use of the earpieces in the clinical setting, but only 45% thought that they should be used for monitoring every anesthetic delivered.