Three words became a full auscultation line in one seminar hour; this MN552 Unit 5 reflection records each attribute the group added aloud, and who asked for it. Searches like "mn 552 unit 5 assignment example", "mn552 unit 5 sample" and "mn552 unit 5 example" land here.
Describing a Murmur Before Naming It: A Seminar Reflection on Heart Sound Attributes
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MN552: Advanced Health Assessment
Unit 5 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The recorded case discussed is a composite prepared for teaching. No real patient is described.
What Happened in the Seminar
Our facilitator played a recorded heart sound twice. The case summary gave only two facts: a composite 58-year-old who wanted a check before joining a hiking club. When the recording finished, the facilitator asked me to describe what I had heard. I said, "Soft systolic murmur," and stopped. At the time it felt like a complete answer.
The group did not let it stand. A classmate who works in a cardiology clinic asked where the sound was loudest. I had to listen again, and with the facilitator's guidance we placed it at the second right intercostal space, the upper right sternal border. The facilitator then asked for a grade. We debated a 2 and a 3 and settled on 2 of 6 once we agreed the sound was audible as soon as the recording started but quietly, with no thrill described in the case. Another participant asked whether it radiated, and the recording set included a second site over the right carotid, where the sound was still present. Pitch and shape came last. We agreed on medium pitch, a harsh quality and a crescendo-decrescendo shape that began after the first heart sound and ended before the second.
By the end of the session, my three words had become a full sentence: "A grade 2 of 6, medium-pitched, harsh, crescendo-decrescendo midsystolic murmur, loudest at the upper right sternal border, radiating to the right carotid." Freeman and Levine (1933) introduced the six-point intensity scale nearly a century ago, and it still gives examiners a shared way to record loudness, which is why the facilitator insisted on a number rather than the word soft.
Why My First Answer Felt Complete
The honest reason is that I had already decided on a cause before I spoke. The age in the case summary and the systolic timing pointed me toward one explanation, and I described only the parts of the sound that fit it. Soft and systolic were enough to support what I was thinking, so I did not look for the rest. I have done the same thing in clinical settings without noticing it: charting a wheeze as "expiratory wheeze" and moving on, when location, pitch and whether it cleared with coughing would each have told the next nurse something useful. The missing attributes did not feel missing because I was describing my conclusion, not the sound.
I tested this idea later in the same session. The facilitator played a second recording, and I tried to describe it without letting myself think about causes. It was harder and slower, and I noticed that I kept wanting to skip location and go straight to timing, because timing is the attribute that points toward a diagnosis. Forcing myself through location, grade and radiation first produced a description my classmates agreed with on the first attempt. Bickley et al. (2021) present these attributes as a fixed sequence for exactly this reason: working through them in order prevents the examiner from stopping when a favored explanation is satisfied.
A Limit of Recorded Sound
Recordings have limits that I should acknowledge without using them as an excuse. A recording cannot show how a murmur changes with position or maneuvers. At the bedside I would listen with the patient sitting forward and at end-expiration, and I would note whether the murmur changes when the patient squats, stands or bears down (Ball et al., 2023). Those changes help separate one type of systolic murmur from another, and a written record should include them. The recording also removed the chance to feel for a thrill or palpate the carotid upstroke. My first answer was weak because of my approach, not because of the audio, but a complete bedside record would contain more than any recording can provide.
A Habit, Rehearsed Afterward
The habit I took from the seminar is to say or write the full attribute sequence before I name any cause: timing, location, intensity, pitch, quality, shape and radiation. After the session I practiced it on three further recordings from the course library and wrote each description in full before reading the answer key. Location, grade and radiation are now consistent with the key. Pitch still gives me trouble; on two of the three recordings I called a sound medium-pitched when the key said high. I am not treating this skill as finished. I plan to keep practicing with the recordings until my pitch descriptions match the key, and to use the same sequence at the bedside when I listen to real patients during my clinical hours.
References
Ball, J. W., Dains, J. E., Flynn, J. A., Solomon, B. S., & Stewart, R. W. (2023). Seidel's guide to physical examination: An interprofessional approach (10th ed.). Elsevier.
Bickley, L. S., Szilagyi, P. G., Hoffman, R. M., & Soriano, R. P. (2021). Bates' guide to physical examination and history taking (13th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
Freeman, A. R., & Levine, S. A. (1933). The clinical significance of the systolic murmur: A study of 1000 consecutive "non-cardiac" cases. Annals of Internal Medicine, 6(11), 1371-1385. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-6-11-1371
How this MN552 Unit 5 example is structured
The reflection moves through three layers: what happened, what the author now thinks about it, and what changed in practice. The descriptive layer is brief, since reflection on the session, not a transcript, is what the prompt typically wants. The interpretive layer does the work. Its central observation is that the first description felt complete because the author already had a cause in mind, and the missing attributes surfaced only when others asked for them. That insight is then tested against a second recording played later. Classmates appear by role, not by name. A short paragraph acknowledges one limit: a recording flattens what a stethoscope on a chest would reveal, including change with position. The closing layer names a single habit, the attribute sequence spoken before any cause, and how it was rehearsed.
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Tell us what the MN552 Unit 5 seminar played or presented, what you said at first and what the rubric asks; working from the written alternative is equally fine. A first reflection comes back within 24-48h at no charge, written in the first person to those instructions and centered on one description and how it changed. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
MN552 Unit 5 questions, answered
What if I completed the written alternative instead of attending?
Then the reflection responds to the alternative's prompt, usually a case or recording worked on paper. The structure stays the same: what the task asked, what your first attempt said, what you now understand differently and how you practiced it. The sample adapts to whichever version of the seminar your section offered that unit.
Does the reflection need citations?
Often one or two, where the paper names a convention such as the grading scale for murmurs or the order of attributes. A reflection is mostly first-person analysis, so heavy citation looks out of place. The sample cites an assessment text for the attribute sequence and leaves everything else as reflection.
Can the reflection admit that I still find something difficult?
It usually should. Instructors grading these reflections tend to trust one that names a remaining difficulty more than one reporting complete success after a single session. The sample closes on pitch, the attribute its author still hesitates over, and describes how that uncertainty is being worked on between seminars.