Hockey--Man what were you smokin' yesterday? Your post has me roflmao. I ran into the gyn around the block coming out of the subway station yesterday. She has an automatic BP machine because she caught more than one of her MAs faking blood pressures. And even when they don't fake them, they are often "not trustworthy" 'cause those MA schools don't really teach or train--they just take money. We've had our own trouble with MAs and blood pressure. "Gee, an awful lot of patients this week have bp of 120/80--just like in the text book."
We received an automatic unit as a prize (made by OMRON I think) but even the MAs complained that it was inaccurate.
If I could find an automatic one that is accurate and reasonably priced, I'd get it just to save Vicky the time of taking the bp. But they seem kind of overpriced--as if there is an extra "Doctor's office markup" being added.
