Exam by body system

How to examine the lymph nodes

Other platforms explain it with text and video. In VMS you practice it on the patient.

MD / DOPA
Practice it in VR with Blocky

Feel nodes in a fixed order and describe any node you find.

Step by step

  1. Head and neck

    Around the ears, back of the head, under the chin and jaw, along the neck, above the collarbone. [1]

  2. Armpits

    Support the arm and feel the walls of the armpit. [1]

  3. Groin

    Below the inguinal ligament. [1]

  4. Describe

    Location, size in cm, tenderness, consistency, mobility, matted or not. [2]

  5. Concerning

    Hard, fixed, painless, larger than about 1 cm, above the collarbone. [2]

  6. Look for a source

    Throat, skin, breast, liver and spleen. [2]

Common errors

Practice it in VMS

In VMS you do this on the patient, not on paper: every step goes on the checklist with a score, and in Teach mode Blocky tells you what comes next.

VMS cases that train this skill

Sources

  1. Stanford Medicine 25 (bedside exam)
  2. NCCPA PANCE Content Blueprint
  3. Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College) (CC BY 4.0)

Steps adapted from Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College), licensed under CC BY 4.0. Facts and steps also follow NCCPA PANCE Content Blueprint; Stanford Medicine 25 (bedside exam). VMS is not affiliated with these organizations. Updated: 2026-10-11.