I didn't notice this the 1st time I saw the April 6th episode, but I just watched it again on video last night and I noticed that, in the scene where Romano was chewing out Peter and Cleo, he had a stethoscope with gold at the top and bottom parts. The other doctors just have regular silver ones. Do you think this is symbolic or something? He's the head honcho, so he gets a gold one? I just thought it was interesting.

-- Melanie (msintn@hotmail.com), April 13, 2000

Answers

I noticed that way back when he first joined ER ... and thought to myself, how tacky! (Reminds me of Tonya Harding's gold ice skates!) Maybe someone had it made for him since he's such a well-known and respected surgeon??

-- Cindy (tailchasers51@hotmail.com), April 13, 2000.

He has been using the gold stethoscope from the beginning, although in the past few episodes (ie. Feb sweeps) I didn't notice it. However, I think it is interesting when all that sexual harrassment stuff with Allie Doyle and Elizabeth in season five, Elizabeth made the comment that Romano was a star and pretty much untouchable. I get the impression, while it wouldn't suprise me if Romano bought the stethoscope himself, if someone else gave it too him as a present (you know someone as arrogant as him, who thinks he is terrific).

-- Emma (webbef@hotmail.com), April 13, 2000.

I never noticed that he has always had it! I guess because we've mostly seen him in the OR doing surgery on people, and he doesn't wear it up there. I bet he bought it for himself. That seems like something he would do!

-- Melanie (msintn@hotmail.com), April 13, 2000.

I wonder if doctor's get stethoscopes or something like that as traditional gifts. A good friend of mine who was a Priest had a special chalise that his parents gave him on his ordination day and others I know received them as special gifts too. So, I'm thinking this would be a traditional gift for a doctor. Remember he mentioned his mother in at least one epi regarding mother's day and his special plans for her...my theory is it was a gift from mom on graduation day! That she scrubbed floors for years to buy it for him.

-- Diana (dilynne@juno.com), April 13, 2000.

It's not a perk of the job or anything, just Romano's way of showing off (like some people have gold hubcaps on their cars, etc.) In my opinion, however, there is symbolism attached to it - though of a slightly different nature.

There is a Canadian medical journal named "Stitches" that specializes in medical humor. One of their recurring articles is a segment called "First Person", wherein doctors, nurses, etc. write in their funniest true medical stories. Every month the best submissions are published in the journal, and of those, the author of the funniest story wins a 3M Littman Master Cardiology stethoscope... which, until recently, used to be gold-plated.

Perhaps this is the writers' way of telling us what a joke Romano is? Just a thought... ;)

-- Lindsay Murphy (murphyl@earthlink.net), April 14, 2000.