 Welcome to Nursing School Explained in this video on how to assess a patient's carotid pulse. Now the carotid artery is a very big structure in the patient's neck, and if we review the anatomy, it'll be fairly easy to find. So first of all, the patient's trachea runs right underneath here. In male patients, it's always easier to see because they have their Adam's apple right here. And the carotid artery sits right next to the trachea, so of course we want to always be very gentle here. If we palpate the trachea on each side and then place our two fingers always in line with the artery and gently depress it, we can feel the patient's carotid pulse. And sometimes if the pulse is fairly strong, you might even be able to see that the artery is actually pushing my fingers out a little bit. And I always want to make sure that I don't compress this carotid artery too much because it might cause lightheadedness in the patient. And then I count for 15 seconds, multiply by four, or count for 30 seconds and multiply by two to get the patient's minute heart rate. As always, if it is irregular, make sure to listen to the patient's apical sight to get the exact heart rate. On caveat here, many times we compare the patient's right and left when it comes to the extremities, but we do not ever want to do that on the carotids because if I would compress both of the arteries here, I could theoretically cut off the circulation to his brain and that could make him pass out. Thanks for watching this video on carotid pulse assessment. Also check out the other pulse sites in my other videos. Thanks for watching.