Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 1,267.
Types of Nurses This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 1,267.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Lillian and Amos about different kinds of nurses people who help you in a hospital or at a doctor's office or wherever you find them.
Let's get started.
It's a difficult job.
But I like it.
I'm a registered nurse.
But there are a lot of different types of nurses.
If you're willing to get an advanced degree, you could become a clinical nurse specialist or a nurse practitioner.
Then you just need a little more training after your bachelor's degree.
You can be a registered nurse, licensed practical nurse, emergency room nurse, operating room nurse, critical care or intensive care nurse or a home care nurse.
Well, I dropped out of college.
I just couldn't hack it.
Hmm. then you might want to consider becoming a certified nursing assistant.
You'll still need to go through a training program, though, and to become certified.
That still sounds like a lot of studying.
I do, but I thought all I'd have to do is serve meals, talk to patients, and make them comfortable.
That's what they do on TV.
Then my advice to you is to become an actor. and play a nurse on TV.
I think that might be the closest you're going to get to the nursing profession.
Lillian begins by saying to Amos, I'd like to become a nurse like you.
I would have a great bedside manner.
The expression bedside b-e-d-s-i-d-e manner m-a-n-n-e-r is used to refer to the way in which a doctor, a nurse or some other medical professional helps people who are sick when they are sick.
The word bedside means being next to or on the side of your bed in a hospital when you are ill or sick.
Bedside manner refers to how well a doctor or a nurse or someone else can talk to you and relate to you as a patient, as someone who is sick.
Amos says that being a nurse is a difficult job.
It's hard to define the word nurse.
A nurse does a lot of different things.
Usually, nurses work with doctors who have medical degrees and pass tests that allow them to do certain things with people in terms of helping them become better or helping them get over illnesses.
A nurse is someone who also has a degree, goes in studies and passes exams or tests to help people who are sick.
But a nurse can't do many of the things that a doctor can do.
Amos says that he's a registered nurse.
There are different kinds of nurses in the United States, and One kind is called a registered R-E-G-I-S-T-E-R-E-D nurse, sometimes abbreviated with the letters RN.
A registered nurse is someone who studies nursing and as what we would call an undergraduate.
That is, they go to college usually for four years.
And then they take an examination and get their permission to work as an RN.
Although Amos is an RN, he explains that there are a lot of different types of nurses.
He says, if you're willing to get an advanced degree, you could become a clinical nurse specialist or a nurse practitioner.
The term advanced degree refers to a degree or an academic certification that goes beyond beyond a four-year undergraduate or bachelor's degree.
So if you study for four years and you get a bachelor's degree and then you decide you want to get something above a bachelor's degree, you would study an additional one or two years and get, for example, a master's degree.
You could then continue studying, as I did, and get a PhD or a doctorate.
Or you could get an MD, which is a medical degree that makes you a medical doctor.
A PhD is someone who usually does research, who is involved in theoretical issues, who is trying to create new knowledge by studying and researching something.
A medical doctor is a practical degree, someone who actually takes knowledge, scientific knowledge, and applies it in a real-world setting, with a person.
Or as my old professor used to say, the PhDs design the cars and the MDs fix them.
I suspect most medical doctors don't agree with that analogy or comparison.
Anyway, I'm getting myself in trouble with all the doctors out there.
The medical doctors, that is.
The advanced degree Amos is talking about is not to become a doctor, but to become either a clinical nurse specialist or a nurse practitioner.
A clinical nurse specialist is someone who studies one particular area of medicine and that interests him and then gets some sort of degree or certificate in that area.
It might be someone who likes working specifically with children, or someone who likes working specifically with certain diseases of the heart.
A clinical nurse specialist then, is someone who studies beyond just the required knowledge needed to become a registered nurse and gets extra knowledge about one area.
A nurse practitioner, P-R-A-C-T-I-T-I-O-N-E-R is in some ways the highest level for a nurse in the sense that a nurse practitioner is able to do some of the things that a doctor does, such as looking at you and trying to identify, or we would use the word diagnose what's wrong with you, a nurse practitioner can also give you certain kinds of medicine.
I had a nurse practitioner at one of the local medical clinics that I used to go to many years ago and he was very good.
He was almost as good as the doctor that I had, and in some ways better.
Lillian says, however, I don't think I want to spend a lot of time in school.
Amos says, then you just need a little more training after your bachelor's degree.
A bachelor's degree is what you get after studying in college for four years, after being what we would describe as an undergraduate degree.
So when you graduate high school in the United States and you want to get a college degree, you go and study, usually for four years, sometimes more, and you get a bachelor's degree.
Amos is telling Lillian that she doesn't have to study all that much beyond her four-year degree.
She could become a licensed practical nurse, an emergency room nurse, an operating room nurse, a critical care or intensive care nurse or a home care nurse.
These are all different specialities in the field or area of nursing.
A licensed practical nurse is someone who works in With a registered nurse, someone who doesn't have the same amount of training as a registered nurse.
An emergency room nurse is someone who works logically in an emergency room.
An emergency room is the place in a hospital where you go when you need medical treatment or to be seen by a doctor immediately.
If you break your leg or burn your hand, you would go to the emergency room so that they could look at you right away.
There are nurses who are specialists in that area.
An operating room nurse is someone who works with doctors who are doing surgeries.
An operating room is a place where the doctor will usually take a knife and cut you open or somehow make a hole in your body to try to fix what's wrong with your body.
When the doctor goes inside your body somehow to fix you.
That is called an operation and it typically happens in an operating room.
Intensive or critical care refers to when you are very sick, close to dying, and the hospital needs to watch you very carefully.
That's called intensive intensive care or critical care.
Again, there are nurses that specialize or are experts in that one area.
There are also home care nurses.
A home care nurse is someone who goes to your house or apartment or condominium or wherever you live and gives you help there, takes care of you there.
You may be there because you can't go to the hospital or, More typically, it's for someone who was in a hospital and is then sent home but needs some additional help from the nurse.
Lillian says, well, I dropped out of college.
To drop out of something means to stop participating in some activity.
In this case, Lillian is saying that she dropped out of college, meaning she went to college maybe for a year or two, but then stopped before she got her bachelor's degree.
Amos is talking about all of these kinds of nurses that require many, but not all of them a bachelor's degree.
Lillian says she doesn't have one.
She says she couldn't hack it.
The expression to hack H-A-C-K.
It means to be able to do something that is difficult, to be successful at a difficult job or task.
If someone says, I can't hack it, he means, I can't do it.
It's too hard for me.
Lillian says it was too hard for her to go to college.
Amos says, hmm, then you might want to consider becoming a certified nursing assistant.
The word certified C-E-R-T-I-F-I-E-D refers to someone who passes a test or is somehow shown to be able to do something.
An assistant is someone who helps another person.
A certified nursing assistant is someone who is not a registered nurse but has studied something about nursing enough to help nurses do what they do.
There are then nurses who do not go to school for four years, who may only study for a year and a half or two years and get another kind of certificate or permission to work as a nurse, but not doing all of the things that a registered nurse can do.
A certified nursing assistant is an example of that.
Amos says you'll still need to go through a training program to become certified.
That is, you have to get permission after passing a test and studying.
Lillian says, that sounds like a lot of studying.
Amos says, you do want to work in nursing, don't you?
Amos is beginning to wonder whether Lillian actually wants to become a nurse at all, at any level.
Lillian says I do, but I thought all I'd have to do is serve meals, meaning give people food, talk to patients, that is, talk to the people who are sick and make them comfortable.
That's what they do on TV.
So now we understand.
Lillian has been watching television and she only sees nurses doing these things in hospitals.
And doesn't realize that of course they have to study, go to college and pass examinations to become nurses.
Amos says, then my advice to you, what I would suggest to you, is to become an actor and play a nurse on TV.
Amos is saying well, if you want to do what they do on TV, then you should just become an actor and pretend to be a nurse.
I think that might be the closest you're going to get to the nursing profession, Amos says.
A profession, P-R-O-F-E-S-S-I-O-N, is...
A job that you get paid to do that usually requires some education, training, and experience.
A profession is a kind of job.
We talk about the teaching profession or the nursing profession or, more generally, the medical profession.
These terms simply refer to the jobs that are related to that particular area.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'd like to become a nurse like you.
I would have a great bedside manner.
It's a difficult job, but I like it.
I don't think I want to spend a lot of time in school.
You can be a registered nurse, licensed practical nurse, emergency room nurse, operating room nurse, critical care or intensive care nurse or a home care nurse.
Well, I dropped out of college.
I just couldn't hack it.
Hmm.
Then you might want to consider becoming a certified nursing assistant.
That still sounds like a lot of studying.
I do, but I thought all I'd have to do is serve meals, talk to the patients and make them comfortable.
That's what they do on TV. then my advice to you is to become an actor and play a nurse on TV.
I think that might be the closest you're going to get to the nursing profession.
Whatever your profession, you can always benefit from improving your English...
And to do that I recommend listening to the dialogues written by our wonderful script writer, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again, right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
