The Murmur in Room 4B

In her third week of clinical rotations at Johns Hopkins, medical student Priya Anand pressed her stethoscope to an elderly patient's chest and heard something she couldn't quite name. A faint whooshing between heartbeats. She noted "heart sounds normal" on her chart and moved on.

The next morning, attending physician Dr. Margaret Chen reviewed the chart, then handed Priya the stethoscope. "Listen again," she said. "Right there, between the lub and the dub. Hear it?"

Priya listened. The same faint whoosh.

"That's a mitral valve murmur," Dr. Chen said quietly. "It's been there every time you listened. You just didn't know what you were hearing."