Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 749, Getting Standard Medical Test Results.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
How are you today?
Oh, just fine, thank you for asking.
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This episode is a dialogue between Judith and Stephen about going to the doctor and getting some results from some tests that the doctor performs on you.
Sounds like fun.
Let's get started.
I had my annual physical two weeks ago and I just got a copy of the lab results, but I can't figure out what they mean.
Let me take a look.
The results of your blood tests are good.
Your cholesterol is within the normal range.
Your glucose levels are fine.
Your hormone levels are good. and your red and white blood cell counts are normal too.
That's good news.
You did well on your EKG stress test, and your bone density scan is fine.
Really?
That's great.
What about the other results?
There appears to be no problems with your pap smear or mammogram results either.
Just be glad you're not a man.
Why's that?
If you were a man, you'd have to have a PSA and a DRE.
A what?
You don't want to know.
Judith has gone to the doctor, and she gets some test results back from the doctor.
She said, But I can't figure out what they mean.
The word annual, A-N-N-U-A-L, means once per year.
A physical is short for a physical examination.
It's usually something you have a doctor do once a year to check to make sure that you are healthy, that there are no new medical problems.
Instead of physical exam, sometimes we just say physical.
I need to get a physical.
That's what the physical is.
It's the examination.
Physical has other meanings in English as well, and those can be found in the wonderful learning guide for this episode.
Judith says that she got a copy of the lab results.
Lab, L-A-B, is short for laboratory.
It's the place where things are tested by scientists.
And lab results are the results of tests that were sent to a laboratory in order to analyze them.
Stephen says, let me take a look.
Let me take a look means let me look at them, let me examine them.
He says, the results of your blood tests are good.
Blood tests are when they take blood, red blood out of you and they test it for certain problems or certain things.
Stephen says that Judith's cholesterol is within the normal range, her glucose levels are fine, her hormone levels are good and her red and white blood cell counts are normal also.
Cholesterol is a fatty substance that when it goes into your bloodstream, into your arteries, it can be dangerous.
It can prevent the blood from flowing through, at least that's my understanding.
I'm not a real doctor, of course.
I just have a Ph.D.
But I looked it up on the Internet.
I think that's right.
A range, R-A-N-G-E, here means a number of numbers or levels, one is a minimum, one is a maximum, between which your score or the number of your test should fall.
So we might say that, for example, if you take an intelligent quotient test, an IQ test, the average result may be 100.
But anything between I don't know 90 and 110 might be considered the normal range where most people would be.
So range has to do with... a low number, a high number, and the numbers in between.
The cholesterol levels of Judith are within the normal range, meaning that she's like most people.
Her cholesterol isn't too high.
It isn't too low.
It's just right.
Glucose, G-L-U-C-O-S-E is a type of sugar that's found in the blood and is used by the body as a source of energy.
So in measuring your glucose level, the doctor is measuring the amount of that sugar, making sure it's not too high or too low or too sweet.
No, just kidding.
Not that kind of sugar.
Hormones are substances in your body that affect a lot of different things.
They affect your sexual development.
They can affect lots of different parts of the way your body functions.
Men and women have different kinds, are different levels of different hormones, and so you need to make sure you have the right level of the different hormones, and it sounds like judith does.
She also has good red and white blood cell counts.
A blood cell is the smallest unit, the smallest part of what we call blood.
A count is a number, how many of them are there.
If you go on a tour with a group of people and then you come back to the bus after the tour, the tour director, the leader, might do a head count.
Well, this is a blood cell count, finding out how many blood cells that Judith has, and it turns out that they are in normal range as well.
Judith says, that's good news.
Stephen says, you did well on the EKG stress test, and your bone density scan is fine.
An EKG is an electrocardiography test.
Stress is normally when you are pushing your body to do perhaps more than it normally does.
Stress can also be anxiety, nervousness, worry.
But here it really refers to using an exercise machine to get your heart working so that the doctors can measure how well your heart is pumping, how well it's working.
This is called an EKG stress test.
A bone density scan... refers to a test where they use a machine that goes over your body.
You can keep your clothes on.
You don't have to take them off for now.
Don't take them off while listening to the podcast anyway, please.
As a general rule, we ask you to keep your clothes on while listening to the podcast.
Anyway, this machine goes over your body and it's looking to see whether your bones, the hard white material under your skin, whether the bone has the correct amount of certain substances, whether they are becoming soft or not.
If they are, then this can be an indication of problems.
Judith's bone density scan was fine.
Judith says that's great.
What about the other results?
Stephen says there appears to be no problems with your pap smear or mammogram.
Well, let's start with pap smear.
I've never actually had a pap smear.
I don't think I ever will.
Why?
Well, it is an examination that is only done on women, and it takes a sample from their we'll call it their internal reproductive organs.
Look that up if you don't know what those are on a woman.
And make sure that there is no sign of cancer for that organ.
PAP stands for something, right?
Yeah.
I have the word in front of me here.
I don't know how to pronounce it.
I've never seen it before.
I'm sorry.
It doesn't really matter.
Everyone calls it a pap smear.
A mammogram, M-A-M-M-O-G-R-A-M, is also something I will probably never have.
It is an X-ray of a woman's breasts. those things that are on the top of a woman's chest.
It's used to make sure the woman doesn't have cancer in the breasts.
Stephen says that her pap smear and mammogram results were just fine, no problems.
Judith says she's glad to hear that.
She says, I hate going through those exams or going to those exams.
Stephen says, Judith asks, Why is that?
Stephen says, if you were a man, you'd have to do a P-S-A and a D-R-E.
Judith says, a what?
And Stephen replies, you don't want to know, meaning it's better that I don't tell you.
Well, I will tell you, however.
PSA and DRE are exams that are typically only done on men, just like pap smears and mammograms are only done on women.
PSA stands for prostate-specific antigen, and only men have a prostate.
It's a test to make sure that the prostate is healthy and that there is no sign of cancer.
It's currently recommended, I believe, that men over the age of 50 have regular PSA examinations so that if there is a problem, they can find it early a problem with cancer.
A DRE is a digital recto exam.
Let's talk about that.
Digital recto. is your finger.
Rectal is well.
When you're sitting on the toilet, the things that come out of your body come through something called a rectum R-E-C-T-U-M.
So rectal is an adjective that describes the rectum.
So you put those two things together and literally, your finger and rectal, and you get the digital rectal exam where the doctor places one of his digits, one of his fingers, in the rectal area.
We'll just leave it at that.
And now we'll listen to the dialogue at a normal speed.
I had my annual physical two weeks ago and I just got a copy of the lab results, but I can't figure out what they mean.
Let me take a look.
The results of your blood tests are good.
Your cholesterol is within the normal range, your glucose levels are fine, your hormone levels are good, and your red and white blood cell counts are normal too.
That's good news.
You did well on your EKG stress test, and your bone density scan is fine.
Really?
That's great.
What about the other results?
There appears to be no problems with your pap smear or mammogram results either.
I'm really glad to hear that.
I hate going through those exams.
I'm glad I don't have to do them more often.
Just be glad you're not a man.
Why's that?
If you were a man, you'd have to have a PSA and a DRE.
A what?
You don't want to know.
Our scriptwriter not only has red and white blood cells, she has red, white, and blue blood cells.
It's the all-American Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
