Exam by body system

How to listen to lung sounds

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

MD / DOPANursing (NCLEX)
Practice it in VR with Blocky

Lung sounds are compared side to side, front, back and sides.

Step by step

  1. Set up

    Quiet room, diaphragm on bare skin, patient breathing deeply through the mouth. [1]

  2. Order

    Ladder pattern side to side, from top to bottom, back then front. [1]

  3. Normal

    Vesicular sounds over most of the lung. [1]

  4. Crackles

    Short popping sounds: fluid or opening airways. [1]

  5. Wheezes and rhonchi

    Musical sounds (narrow airways) and low snoring sounds (secretions). [1]

  6. Stridor and rub

    Stridor over the neck is urgent; rub is a grating sound. [1]

  7. Record

    Sound, location, phase of breathing. [1]

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

103 VMS cases train this skill: open the case library

Sources

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

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.