MUST Know Abdominal Assessment Nursing Tips for nursing school students, nurses, and NCLEX. When assessing the abdomen on a patient, such as during a head-to-toe assessment, you'll want to keep several things in mind. First, you want to inspect, auscultate, percuss, and then palpate. This is a little different from the order of other assessment types, where you would auscultate last. Next, you want to start at the right lower quadrant and work in a clockwise directions through the other abdomina