Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about hospitals.
Hospitals are places you go when you are injured or sick or suffering from some sort of illness.
By the way being sick and having an illness are pretty much the same thing.
A hospital here in Canada and I think in most parts of the world is a large building.
And there are several different areas in the hospital where you go, depending on what is wrong with you.
And usually the first place you go if it's an emergency is the ER or emergency room.
But I'm getting into the lesson already.
So let me stop and just say welcome once again to this English lesson about hospitals. patient.
A person receiving medical care.
So if you go to the doctor's office or if you go to the hospital and there is something wrong with you,
Maybe you've hurt your arm in a car accident.
Maybe you have really bad headaches.
Maybe you let me see what else could have happened.
Maybe a dog bit you.
You might then become a patient.
A person receiving medical care.
Uh, when you go to a doctor's office or to a hospital, sometimes they will put a little band around your arm and name on it, so that everyone that talks to you and sees you at the hospital knows that you are a patient there.
So, once again, a patient, a person receiving medical care.
Hospital.
A place where people go to receive medical care and treatment.
So a hospital is again usually a very large building.
And you can see at the bottom it says emergency.
That's usually where people go when they need attention right away.
I'll teach that term in just a moment.
Um in Canada most hospitals look like this.
Usually a large building where people go to receive medical care and treatment.
If you're in a car accident they'll take you to the hospital.
Um if you have something minor though that you usually don't go to the hospital.
If I had a really bad cold, I would go and see my doctor in the doctor's office.
So, hospitals are usually for very very serious things.
ER emergency room.
The part of a hospital where people get immediate care for serious injuries or illnesses.
So I've mentioned this a few times.
ER is short for emergency room.
We often just say ER.
Sometimes we even just say emergency.
Did you go to emergency?
Did you go to the ER?
Did you go to emerge?
We even shorten the word sometimes, but it's the part of the hospital where you would go and it's four o'clock in the morning and you have something seriously wrong with you.
You would go to the ER or the emergency room or emergency or emerge.
And that's where I went.
I went to emerge.
I went to the part of the hospital where people get immediate care for serious injuries or illnesses waiting room.
An area where patients sit and wait before seeing a doctor.
So when I went to the hospital I'm going to talk a little bit about my trip as I teach this lesson.
I went to the waiting room and I sat and waited.
Even though I wasn't feeling well.
Even though I needed uh immediate care.
I did sit in the waiting room for about a minute.
So it was really nice that they were able to see me quickly.
Triage.
The area of a hospital and the process of deciding which patients need care first.
So triage is an interesting thing because it's a place where Like this is triage two.
But it's also a verb.
They will triage you.
So triage basically works this way.
If five people come to the emergency room, they will have a quick look at all of you almost immediately and they'll decide who has the most serious situation and who needs to go and see the nurse and doctor first.
So let's just say when I went to triage I was immediately taken in to for them to look at me.
But triage, the area of a hospital and the process of deciding which patients need care first.
Let me just explain one more time.
This is the triage area where you get triaged.
So again, in English, sometimes we use nouns and verbs.
A word can be a noun and a verb. nurse.
A medical worker who cares for patients and helps doctors.
And then we have doctor and physician.
A person trained to diagnose and treat illnesses and injuries.
If you're wondering what is the difference between a nurse and a doctor, really comes down to how much time you spent studying medicine.
So a nurse might go to school for two years or three years and become a nurse.
They might go for an additional year or two and become a nurse practitioner, and which is someone who knows more than a nurse.
And a doctor is usually in school for six to eight years depending on where you go.
So really the only difference between a nurse and a doctor or physician is that a nurse spends less time studying and maybe learning more of the hands on things like giving needles and putting on bandages.
Uh whereas a doctor may specialize and be able to do surgery.
If you're wondering in Canada we still have I think 90% of our nurses are usually women.
Although there are 10% of the population that are male nurses.
Uh when it comes to doctors and physicians though, it's almost 5050.
I wanted to teach the term 5050.
Half of our doctors are men and the other half of our doctors are women.
I think it's a little a skewed still.
I think it's more like 48% 52% like 47% of doctors are women.
52% are men but uh that is the split.
Surgeon.
A doctor who performs operations on patients.
So I want to be clear here.
I did not require surgery when I was at the hospital.
So a surgeon performs an operation or performs surgery and it's something they do to help fix something that's wrong with you.
So a surgeon is a doctor who performs operations on patients.
When I went for heart surgery almost 10 years ago now a surgeon did the surgery.
And a specialist a doctor who focuses on one area of medicine.
So when I broke my collarbone had to go see a specialist.
A doctor who specializes in broken bones.
That means they became a doctor but they've also learned more.
They know more about a certain part of the human body.
So let me see here.
A cardiologist is a specialist on the heart.
And the doctor that I saw for my fracture is a specialist in broken bones.
So, specialist, a doctor who focuses on one area of medicine.
Often, when you go to your family doctor, they will then send you to a specialist if they don't know exactly how to help you.
Hospital gown.
A loose piece of clothing worn by patients in a hospital that is easy to put on and remove for medical care.
So, if you go to a hospital, you have to wear a hospital gown.
Um, one of the reasons you wear a hospital gown is if they need to do something quickly and can easily access different parts of your body.
Or something as simple as they needed to put a heart rate monitor on me.
They can easily access the parts of my body to put all of the the little sticker leads on.
So Um but they're not they're not exactly pleasant to wear.
So a hospital gown is a very loose piece of clothing worn by patients in a hospital that is easy to put on and remove for medical care.
It's not very in English, we would say it's not very flattering.
Like you don't look great wearing a hospital gown, but the intention is you can see too.
The sleeves have snaps, so if all of the sudden something went wrong,
They could easily you know open it up to do whatever they needed to do.
But yes, a hospital gown, a very loose piece of clothing worn by patients in a hospital that is easy to put on and remove for medical care.
Hospital bed.
A movable bed designed for patients in a hospital.
The bed I was in was actually you can kinda see it in the background there.
It was a very modern bed.
This is a a bit of an older bed I would say.
Um, but my, my bed, they could drive it.
It had, like it had.
It had motorized wheels, so they could drive me around in the bed.
It was it was pretty cool.
But like I said I
It's a brand new hospital so they have a lot of brand new things.
Uh a hospital bed as well.
You can kind of raise and lower the section where your head is.
So if you want to sit up, you can sit up um, instead of laying around all day.
Different than a stretcher.
So if you ever watch a sports game, any kind of athletic match, a stretcher is an apparatus designed for transporting patients needing medical care.
If a football player twists their ankle or can't walk, they will come out with a stretcher that They will put him or her onto the stretcher and then they are able to carry them wherever they need to go to get medical care.
So stretcher an apparatus designed for transporting patients needing medical care. wheelchair.
This is the exact wheelchair that they made me use in the hospital.
Uh a chair with wheels used to move people who cannot walk or should not walk.
I was in the second category.
They didn't want me to walk because I had lost blood and they were afraid that I might pass out or that I might become unconscious.
That didn't happen.
Um it was close though but it didn't happen.
Um but a chair with wheels used to move people who cannot walk or should not walk.
So I thought this was a pretty fancy wheelchair.
Um this So I spent some time trying to find the exact model.
Um I don't think this was motorized.
I think they had to push me when I was in it but yes, a chair with wheels that allows them to move people around.
IV.
Intravenous a needle tube and fluid pouch used to give fluids or medicine directly into a vein.
I did experience this part of it because I had lost lots of fluids.
I had lost blood.
They did have a needle that went into a vein.
Um I think they did a couple different spots.
I think it was on my left arm actually.
Um and then they had what they called um sometimes we just call it a drip because it drips water in.
But uh yes they put me on IV. or if you want to use the whole word, they put me on intravenous.
So, a needle tube and fluid pouch used to give fluids or medicine directly into a vein.
Vital signs.
Basic body measurements like heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature.
So you can kind of see let me go back to this picture kind of if you look at my right arm at the bottom there that is the little machine that was monitoring all of my vital signs.
So when you are monitoring vital signs well that's really big.
You can see on here.
It was monitoring my blood oxygen level, my heart rate, my probably a few other things.
I know it took my blood pressure every half hour.
The little thing.
Would you know how it would squeeze the arm and then it would take my blood pressure?
But yes, vital signs.
Basic body measurements like heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature. monitor.
A machine that shows the heartbeat and heart activity.
So I was put on a heart monitor because in the past I have had heart surgery and they wanted to make sure that my heart was working good and it worked great the whole time.
I was very happy about that.
But a heart monitor is a special machine that shows the heart rate or heartbeat and heart activity.
You could say heart rate as well.
That would work.
Oxygen.
A device that helps a patient breathe by giving extra oxygen.
They might put an oxygen mask on someone, or they might just do this which kind of just puts oxygen into your nose.
Just a little bit of oxygen.
They did do this when I first arrived, but they took it off fairly quickly because they realized I didn't really need oxygen.
Um, I didn't really need oxygen, but I did have that little with two little things that go in your nose and it kind of pushes oxygen in.
So you might be put on oxygen.
You might need oxygen, but all of that refers to a device that helps a patient breathe by giving them extra oxygen.
Blood test.
Medical tests that check a sample of blood.
So, when they take blood, that's how we, that's how we say it.
They need to take blood and then the blood is sent to a lab.
So, they might say, we're going to do some blood tests.
You need a blood test.
We need to find out what's in your blood, whether you have healthy blood.
So they will use a little needle and they will poke your arm and they will fill these little test tubes with blood by the way, hopefully you don't faint at the sight of blood, because there is blood in this slide, uh and then they will check to make sure that your iron levels are correct.
They'll check to make sure that your hemoglobin levels are correct, and a number of other things that I learned when I was at the hospital.
But yes, that's how we say it.
I think I actually have a slide.
To take blood means to collect blood from a patient for testing.
So this might be something you do every few years.
Your doctor might say just to make sure you're healthy, Let's take some blood and do a blood test to find out if everything is working the way it's supposed to.
ICU.
The intensive care unit.
I was not in the intensive care unit, but this is a special area for patients who need very close monitoring.
So, the ICU and we usually just call it that.
We rarely say intensive care unit.
We might say intensive care, but here's how I would use it.
Man had an accident and he was in the ICU for two days.
Or the man had a car accident and he was in intensive care for two days.
So that's how we use it in a sentence.
It's an area in the hospital where there are a lot more doctors and nurses there all the time and they very closely monitor the patient.
So, a very special area for patients who need very close monitoring.
If you have surgery let's say you have heart surgery and the surgery you will probably be in the ICU for half a day or a few hours until they make sure everything is working the way it's supposed to.
So ICU intensive care unit a special area for patients who need very close monitoring.
OR.
We shorten these things a lot don't we?
Or operating room.
The room where surgeries are performed.
So if they need to like fix something inside of you.
If you need surgery you need to go to the hospital.
They will get you ready for surgery and then, at a certain point, you will be taken to the OR be taken to the operating room, which is a very clean room.
Uh, a very sanitary room, because they don't want you to get an infection and that's where they will do the surgery.
So OR operating room the room where surgeries are performed. examine.
We're going to look at a few verbs now.
Maybe a little quicker.
To examine is to check a patient's body for problems.
So when you first go to see a doctor or when you first go to the emergency room, they will examine you.
They They will check to see what your heart rate is.
They might look in your eye to see if everything looks good.
But to examine, to check a patient's body for problems, then to diagnose, to identify a disease or condition.
So if I hurt my arm, they might first examine my arm and then they might say you need an X-ray, and then they might say, when they diagnose me, they might say your arm is broken.
You need a cast.
So, to diagnose is to identify a disease or condition.
To treat, to give medical care to help someone get better.
This person is getting a needle.
So they examined this person and they diagnosed that they needed the needle to help them feel better.
So to treat means to give medical care to help someone get better. admit.
To officially accept a patient into the hospital.
So let me explain this.
When you go to the emergency room.
You have not been admitted to the hospital yet.
You are waiting to have someone look at you.
You.
They ask you to come to a room in the back to to examine and to diagnose.
You still have not been admitted to the hospital.
But if they say we'd like to keep you overnight and you need to stay overnight,
They will then admit you to the hospital.
They'll take you from the emergency room to a normal hospital room and then that's where you will stay for a day or two monitor.
To regularly check a patient's condition.
So for me they wanted to monitor my vital signs.
They wanted to monitor my blood.
They wanted to monitor monitor my blood pressure and a few other things.
So to monitor means to regularly check a patient's condition, to discharge, to allow a patient to leave the hospital.
You know this person is being discharged because they are no longer wearing a hospital gown.
So that must be a nice feeling.
I was very excited when they took the needle out of my arm and I could take off my hospital gown and put on normal clothing.
I
And then they still made me ride in a wheelchair to the door of the hospital.
I think they just don't want anyone to trip or fall on their way out.
And then to recuperate.
Let me say that word again.
It's a little tricky.
To recuperate.
To rest and recover your health and strength after being sick, injured or having a medical procedure.
So they told me you can go home.
You need to take five days off work to recuperate.
You need to just rest.
Your body needs time to heal.
You need time to become strong again.
So to recuperate, to rest and recover your health and strength after being sick, injured or having a medical procedure follow up.
Now this verb works two ways.
Your doctor might follow up with you.
Which is to check on a patient after treatment.
They might also say you need to follow up with your doctor in a week.
You should call and make an appointment.
So the doctor can follow up on you but you can also follow up with your doctor.
There's two ways to use that verb.
Then just two fun things to end the lesson.
Short staffed means not having enough workers available.
The hospital I went to did not seem short staffed.
I feel like they had enough nurses and doctors that I was very well taken care of, but sometimes when you go to an ER it looks like this because they don't have enough workers.
They don't have enough nurses or doctors.
They are short staffed.
So this would not be an enjoyable visit to the hospital.
And then lastly let's talk about what did Jen do in all of this.
Jen would come and visit and she would park and it was paid parking.
Hospitals require that you pay to park.
A parking area where you must pay to leave your car.
Um, this is pretty common in Ontario Canada that when you visit someone at the hospital, they Sometimes parking is the most expensive part of the visit.
Thankfully at our hospital, I think it was only $6, but they definitely had paid parking, a parking area where you must pay to leave your car.
