"René Laennec and Anna Li are both innovative problem-finders from the world of medicine. In the 1860s, Laennec, a French physician, wanted a more effective way to listen to women's heartbeats without having to put his ear to their chests. Instead he rolled up a paper tube as a funnel and found that the heartbeats were amplified. He called the simple invention "stethoscope," drawing from the Greek words for "chest" and "view/see.""
"Li is not yet a physician, but is well on her way to modify Laennec's idea. As an MD/Ph.D. student in a joint program at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, she is seeking to empower patients with greater access to independently monitor their health in places that feel safe for them, such as their homes. Her redesign of Laennec's invention is called the "SoundHeart," and it puts the stethoscope in patients' hands. Literally."
"A 2018 graduate of Duke University, Li's childhood dream was to help underserved and abandoned animals as a veterinarian, but she pivoted to human medicine after a close friend's experience with cystic fibrosis in high school. "That was my first experience with how the medical system fails people," she told me. "She didn't have that many [medical] options, which was upsetting to me.""
René Laennec invented the stethoscope in the 1860s by rolling a paper tube to amplify heartbeats and named it from Greek roots meaning chest and view. Anna Li, an MD/Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon, redesigned the stethoscope as SoundHeart to place auscultation tools in patients' hands for home monitoring. Li shifted from veterinary aspirations to human medicine after a friend's cystic fibrosis experience revealed healthcare gaps. Clinical experience during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted telemedicine's limitations for physical exams and motivated Li to create a device that improves access in culturally safe, familiar environments.
Read at Psychology Today
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