Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 567, Visiting a Patient in the Hospital.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 567.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
If you like this podcast and would like to support us, you can become a member of ESL Podcast by going to our website eslpodcom C-O-M.
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This episode is about someone visiting a hospital.
It uses vocabulary that you would need in a hospital.
I hope you don't need it but if you do, here it is.
Let's get started.
You're just in time.
There's only another 20 minutes until the end of visiting hours.
I got here as soon as I could.
How is Uncle Peter?
They moved him from the emergency ward to the intensive care unit.
He's on life support.
They've been running tests all day and the doctor is supposed to come by after her rounds to talk to us.
Hopefully, we'll get some answers then, and she'll give us an update on Uncle Peter's condition.
Come on, I'll take you to the ICU.
Okay, but I really dread seeing him on a respirator and hooked up to monitors.
This is it, room 323.
Oh, look at him.
What are all of these IV drips for?
He looks so lifeless in that hospital bed.
Is he under sedation?
Yeah, I think so.
We'll know more when the doctor gets here.
Oh, here she is.
Let's hope she has some answers for us.
George begins by saying to Anais, you're just in time.
In time means before something is ending, before something is no longer possible.
To tell someone that they are just in time means that a few minutes later, or maybe an hour later, they would not be able to do what they can do now.
George says, are times when family and friends can see and visit patients in a hospital.
A patient is someone who is sick.
So it's the time you can go to the hospital and talk to somebody who's there.
Every hospital has different visiting hours.
Ines says, I got here as soon as I could, as fast as I could.
How is Uncle Peter?
George says, they moved him from the emergency ward to the intensive care unit.
In a hospital, the different parts or sections of the hospital are called wards, W-A-R-D-S.
For babies that are going to be born, you go to the maternity ward.
That's where they deliver babies.
There was a famous novel by the late Russian writer Alexander Sozhenitsyn called The Cancer Ward.
That would be the place in the hospital where they take care of people who have cancer.
This is the emergency ward.
It's for people who have very serious problems and need immediate attention.
The intensive care unit is a special part of the hospital for people who are so sick they might die soon, so that they are given extra attention, extra care, help to make sure they don't.
George says that Uncle Peter is on life support.
Life support in a hospital are machines that keep a person alive.
Often they allow the person to breathe, They prevent the person from dying.
If they did not have the life support, they would die.
To be on life support is to be in a very serious situation.
Ines says, how could this have happened?
How could somebody in the prime of his life collapse suddenly like that?
Ines doesn't understand why Uncle Peter is sick.
She says he's in the prime of his life.
The expression the prime P-R-I-M-E of one's life are the best years, the years where you are almost always going to be healthy.
Maybe it's between 20 and 70.
Depends on the person.
I'm 46, so I'm in the prime of my life.
Uncle Peter suddenly collapsed.
To collapse means to fall down suddenly because you feel sick, you feel weak.
Perhaps you become unconscious, like you were sleeping.
That's to collapse.
George says that the doctors have been running tests, doing tests all day, trying to find out what is wrong.
The doctor, he says, is supposed to come by, is supposed to visit, after her rounds, to talk to us.
Rounds R-O-U-N-D-S are when a doctor goes and sees all of his or her patients, usually in a certain order.
First they go to this ward, then they go to that ward.
First they see this person, then they see that person.
It's sort of like the plan that doctors follow to visit all of the patients that they have.
George says, hopefully we'll get some answers then, when the doctor comes.
And she'll give us an update, the most recent information on Uncle Peter's condition, how Peter is doing.
I should mention that the word round that we just talked about has several different meanings in English.
If you're a member of ESL Podcast, you can find out what those are by going to the learning guide for this episode.
You can also find other meanings of the word condition in that same learning guide.
George says, come on, I'll take you to the ICU.
The ICU is the intensive care unit, often called simply ICU.
Inés says, okay, but I really dread seeing him on a respirator and hooked up to monitors.
To dread D-R-E-A-D means not to want to do something because you are very worried or you're anxious about what will happen.
Uncle Peter is on a respirator.
A respirator is a machine that helps you breathe.
By pushing oxygen into your lungs, it allows you to breathe even if you can't breathe on your own.
It's very common, when someone is ill, that they are so weak that they cannot breathe properly, and so respirators are used to keep them alive.
Anais says that Uncle Peter is hooked up to monitors.
To be hooked up to something means to be connected to something.
A monitor is a machine, especially in a hospital, that tells you how the person, the patient, is doing, their heart rate, their blood pressure and so forth.
George says, this is it.
They've been walking to the ICU.
This is it, he says, room 323.
Ines says, oh, look at him, meaning Uncle Peter.
What are all these IV drips for?
IV stands for intravenous.
IV drip is a clear, usually plastic, bag that is full of liquid, often with medicine in it, and it hangs next to the patient.
It is hooked up to the patient.
There's actually something that goes in usually to the patient's arm.
This allows, for example, for the doctors to make sure the person keeps hydrated, make sure they have enough water.
It is also a way of giving medicine to a person who is sick.
You'll often see IVs next to patients in hospitals.
Ines then says, he looks so lifeless in that hospital bed.
To be lifeless is to be without life, basically like you're dead.
Ines says, is he under sedation?
Sedation?
Sedation is medicine that makes you very sleepy.
It calms you down.
Often, if someone is under sedation, you can't talk to them because they're sleeping or they don't respond normally to you.
George says, yeah, I think so.
We'll know more when the doctor gets here.
Oh, here she is.
Ines then says, Let's hope she has some answers for us.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
You're just in time.
There's only another 20 minutes until the end of visiting hours.
I got here as soon as I could.
How is Uncle Peter?
They moved him from the emergency ward to the intensive care unit.
He's on life support.
How could this have happened?
How could somebody in the prime of his life collapse suddenly like that?
They've been running tests all day and the doctor is supposed to come by after her rounds to talk to us.
Hopefully we'll get some answers then, and she'll give us an update on Uncle Peter's condition.
Come on, I'll take you to the ICU.
Okay, but I really dread seeing him on the respirator and hooked up to monitors.
This is it.
Room 323.
Oh, look at him.
What are all these IV drips for?
He looks so lifeless in that hospital bed.
Is he under sedation?
Yeah, I think so.
We'll know more when the doctor gets here.
Oh, here she is.
Let's hope she has some answers for us.
The script for this episode was written by someone in the prime of her writing life, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
