Auscultation of the chest
Auscultation of the chest should be performed in the following manner: ask patient to cough up any sputum before listening use the diaphragm of the stethoscope and consider the surface anatomy of the lungs ask the patient to breath deeply through the mouth listen at top, middle and bottom of both sides of the chest at the front and back and then in the axilla assess the character of the breath sounds assess the vocal resonance