The Assessment Desk

A respiratory assessment is documented in a fixed order — inspect, palpate, percuss, auscultate — and the words students garble most are the four adventitious sounds. Pick a sound and watch it draw itself against the breathing cycle, so you can see why a wheeze is expiratory and stridor is inspiratory. Then move to Measure, drag the numbers, and watch which term the values earn: hypoxemia, hypoxia and hypercapnia are three different findings, and only one of them a pulse oximeter can see.