Dextrocardia I was spending the summer shadowing a...

Dextrocardia

I was spending the summer shadowing a pediatric cardiologist, learning how to read and interpret EKGs and meeting patients who were living with congenital heart defects- problems that had arisen from improper fetal development. With each patient, the doctor would ask questions and proceed to press his stethoscope to the patient’s left breast area to listen to the heart. It had become fairly routine. About midway through the day, we met a boy of about 8 years old, a patient who had come in for his annual checkup. Suddenly, the doctor was pressing his stethoscope to the child’s right breast area. He listened through his instrument, asked the basic medical questions, updated the patient’s records and within minutes, we were finished, just as we had been with all of the other patients. On our way out of the exam room, my mind was racing, trying to figure out what I had just seen. The doctor has pressed his stethoscope to the child’s right side. It was a routine exam, but for some reason, I was completely thrown off. Sheepishly, I tried to confirm with the doctor, “the heart’s on the left side, right?”. The doctor simply smiled and nodded, waiting for me to solve this puzzle on my own. “But you were listening on his right side…”, I murmured quietly, still confused. He said nothing, obviously enjoying my ignorance. But after a few minutes of watching me trying to rack my brain, he finally says “the patient’s condition is called dextrocardia; his heart is effectively in the wrong place. While your heart is on your left side, his heart is on his right.”