Diagnostic Physical Skills and the Hands-On Exhibit

At the Laurence E. Carroll, MD Educational Center

For thousands of years, physicians have used four basic physical skills to examine the body and look for abnormalities.

INSPECTION

This is a most basic skill and starts when the medical provider first looks at the patient. What is being inspected are color (yellow for jaundice, red for inflammation), swelling, alignment (or misalignment), gait (the way a patient walks), and the motion of the joints.

AUSCULTATION

this is the skill of listening to the sounds that the body makes such as the sounds of the beating heart, the lungs moving air in and out, the bowel passing material through during the digestive process, and even the noise made by moving joints and tendons. Usually, a stethoscope is used for this.

PALPATION

With this skill, the hands are used to feel areas of the body to find tenderness, swelling, and size.

PERCUSSION

By using a finger to tap a finger on the other hand a sound is produced. The sound produced is determined by what is beneath the ” percussed ” area. By carefully listening for the difference in the sound, the size, location, and character of the underlying organs can be discovered.