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Doctor With Stethoscope

Using well-trained listening skills, Charles Smith, an oncologist at Rappahannock General Hospital in Kilmarnock, Virginia, uses a stethoscope to hear the sounds in a cancer patient's chest. The highly sensitive—and versatile—instrument allows doctors to detect normal and abnormal sounds in such organs and vessels as the heart, lungs, arteries, and intestines.

Photograph by Jodi Cobb