Most doctors agree: the key to learning the basics of heart murmurs is the repetition component. The more students listen, the more they will learn.

But teaching techniques of the past are no longer keeping up with the high-tech future of medicine, said Michael Barrett, clinical associate professor of medicine and cardiologist at the Temple University School of Medicine and Temple University Hospital.

Through his research, Barrett, a Penn State alumnus, has found that using iPods as an instruction aid can increase the recognition rate of heart murmurs -- abnormal rhythms in the heart -- from 40 to 80 percent.

After a group of students listened to tracks of the four different, basic heart murmurs 500 times, they were able to recognize the murmurs on the same level as a cardiologist.

"Other techniques being used are not as good and leave students only able to recognize about 30 to 40 percent of heart murmurs," Barrett said.

Barrett initially used CDs composed of different tracks but it wasn't until he asked his students about the CDs' teaching value that he learned students were uploading the tracks onto their iPods for convenience.

"There is a huge benefit here," said Stephen Tingley, physician at University Health Services. "The conventional way has always been to listen to a couple beats in class then go out in the field."

By having a clear understanding of how an abnormal heart rhythm sounds, students will be able to detect problems in their patients with more accuracy, Tingley said.

In the past, students could go to the library, take out tape recordings of different heart sounds and listen to them; however, it wasn't something students made the effort to do unless they were studying cardiology, Tingley said.

"Heart sounds have been taught by tapes for years, but," Charlie Chambers, a cardiologist at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center said, "the beauty of using iPods is that they can be widely distributed and used by universities."

While using iPods can be a great tool in training students to recognize several subtle heart sounds, it is not the method employed by the Penn State College of Medicine, said Robert Zelis, a cardiologist and professor in medicine at Penn State.

Zelis said that recognizing cardiac problems is more complex, and stresses to his students that they must recognize abnormal rhythms not by sound alone, but by listening to the patient.

"The old truth bears repeating: 'It's not the type of stethoscope that is important, it's what's between the ear pieces,' " he said.

Students still need the intellectual stimulation of the lectures and experience but that the iPOD technique enhances students' learning, Barrett added.

After surveying his students at the end of each semester, 95 percent said they preferred this kind of learning, and 90 percent felt they could better recognize heart murmurs because of it, Barrett said.

To simply describe the sounds is not the same as hearing them, Tingley said.

"It's just like listening to a good friend's voice over the telephone. Over time you can recognize the person immediately," Tingley said. "It's the same here. The pattern of the heart sounds will become ingrained in your head."