Real Medical English

Medical Terminology - The Building Blocks

2012-01-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

Learning medical English can seem a little overwhelming to begin with. There is of course a lot of specialised medical vocab to get to grips with and some rather tongue twisting pronunciation. I mean, just how do you pronounce the word anaesthetist? (click the link to the cambridge dictionary and click the red and blue icons to listen how). I've been trying to get my head round this one for years!

Non-colloquial medical terminology contains a range of specialised vocab, used by health care professionals, to formally describe the human body (anatomy), medical conditions, medical procedures, fields of medicine and some items of medical equipment.

The fact that medical English boasts the longest word in any English dictionary suggests that the road to having a solid medical knowledge base could be a hard one. This is not the case. The aforementioned word is 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis', try saying that one when you've had a few piwos! But what exactly does it mean and are all of the 45 letters absolutely necessary? Don't panic folks! It's very unlikely that you'll hear this word used in everyday medical English. The Oxford English Dictionary describes the word as 'factitious' or 'made up', but its existence highlights a very important point, and that is of course, how medical words are constructed.

A lot of medical words originate from Latin or Greek and are made up of 3 very important components or building blocks.

1. Prefixes (are added at the beginning of a medical word and add extra information such as position, description and quantity)
2. Roots (are the main part or stem of the medical term and can be found at the beginning, middle or end of a word. They mainly refer to bodily parts and processes, but also to colour, substance and description)
3. Suffixes (are attached to the end of a medical word to add meaning such as condition, disease process or surgical procedure)

So lets try it out. How about the word dysuria for example, well if we know that dys- means difficulty (with something) and the suffix -uria denotes urine, then we can quickly work out that this is the term used when a patient complains of difficulty passing urine. If a patient has blood in their urine then we call this haematuria, haem meaning blood. Of course the study of the blood is known as haematology as the suffix -ology means the study of a particular field or subject. A pattern begins to form.

So how about our lengthy friend pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis?
Well, lets break it down.
pneumo = air/lungs

ultra = very/extreme
micro = small
scopic = see
silico = silicon
volcano = volcano
coni = dust
osis = functional disorder/disease

In other words it's a lung disease caused by breathing microscopic silicon dust found near volcanos. Why are people so close anyway? "Look out she's gonna blow!"

So how do you get to grips with it. Believe me, learn the most common components and you'll be creating real medical words before you can say, "Sorry Mr. Jones, but i'm afraid we'll have to perform a sigmoidoscopy!"

You can find useful lists of prefixes and suffixes (known collectively as affixes) and medical roots on the internet. The lists are usually quite long so we have put together the most commonly used, from our extensive hands-on experience in health care, and created 3 very useful worksheets, which once completed and learnt confidently, will give you a solid foundation to base your medical English knowledge on. You could even create your own just like Everett M. Smith did with his 45 worder back in 1935. Download our free terminology worksheets in order to learn the most common roots and affixes. Happy creating and learning :) Any feedback is warmly welcome. Check out our website www.realmedicalenglish.com for more free learning resources.

Medical Abbreviations - Prescription Writing

2011-11-23T05:29:00.000-08:00

There is usually so much clinical information to pass on between colleagues that it's probably no surprise to find a multitude of medical abbreviations, medical jargon and shortened terms in everyday use. You can see why, "quick pass me the defib", makes more sense than, "quick pass me the defibrillator". Time is vital in an emergency situation and every second counts. Or how about "his sats have dropped", instead of "his oxygen saturation has dropped". Its just so much easier to say.

Learning medical abbreviations can pose a few problems. You only have to look on the internet or in most medical terminology books to find lists as long as your arm. Many abbreviations are used in prescription writing and in the language used when administering drugs or medicine.

so much info, so little room

The process of writing safe and effective prescriptions (scripts) requires a lot of important information such as drug name, drug dosage, frequency of administration, route of administration, start date, and prescriber's name. Anyone who has seen a hospital drug kardex will know that that they don't leave much room for all of the above information, and if you are the admitting doctor required to write up (prescribe) 15 different drugs, then its understandable why so many abbreviations are used.

The following are the most commonly used:
Stat
From 'statim' meaing 'immediately'. Stat doses are usually given in emergency situations. You'll hear this a lot on ER. "Give him a stat dose of narcan and monitor his breathing".

PRN
From 'pro re nata' meaning 'in the circumstances' or 'as and when required'. 'PRN' prescriptions are forward thinking and proactive. If a patient is admitted with a condition that has or may develop symptoms such as a fever, nausea, vomiting or pain, nurses are able to give such drugs without asking the doctor to come and write it up.

OD, BD, TDS, QDS
You'll see this collection of abbreviations when referring to the frequency of drug administration.
OD = Once a day, BD = twice a day, TDS = three times a day, and QDS = four times a day.

PO, PR, PV
These abbreviations refer to the route of drug administration. PO is said and written when administering tablets, capsules or fluids orally or by mouth. PR is used when you you need to give an enema or suppository rectally. PR is also used when a doctor needs to perform a DRE digital (finger) rectal examination. PV is used when cream or a pessary needs to be given vaginally.

SC, IV, IM,
As with the above this family of abbreviations also refers to the route of drug administration, but only when a needle is involved. So when the patient needs some form of injection or cannula (venflon) insertion.
SC = subcutaneous, into the fatty tissue below the skin.
IV = intravenous, into a vein.
IM = intramuscular, into a muscle.

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If you would like to receive free medical English worksheets or ask a medical English question then contact us at contact@realmedicalenglish.com or join our group on facebook.

www.realmedicalenglish.com

2011-11-07T08:12:00.000-08:00

Remember to visit our website where you can:
1. Apply for one of our courses (online or in Poznan).
2. Learn about how to find a medical post in the UK.
3. Download free medical English worksheets and mp3s.
4. Read what our students think of us.
5. Contact us with any questions about medical English or our company.

Sick

2011-11-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

Can i speak to Huey please?

Nowadays the word 'sick' pops up in many different contexts. It can get a little confusing, so lets make things absolutely clear regarding it's use in medical English. As a noun 'sick' is 'vomitus', the ejected contents of ones stomach. Yep, that extra shot of vodka doesn't seem like a good idea now, does it?! And why are there always carrots in there? Sorry, i just can't help myself.

A common question is "what's the difference between the expressions 'to be sick' and 'to feel sick'?" Well to be sick is to vomit, spew, puke, barf, throw up, or talk to Huey on the big white telephone. Yes i have heard this one used!

To feel sick has 2 clear meanings. If you feel sick then you feel nauseous, such as if you're having cardiac chest pain, have just sniffed dog poo, have travel or sea sickness (nausea comes from the Greek 'naus' = 'ship'). So you could potentially be about to vomit, which may or may not actually happen.

On the other hand, a patient may say that they feel sick to indicate that they feel generally ill or unwell, so they could have a cold, a headache or non specific symptoms such as fatigue. The most important point here is that if a patient says "i feel sick", then you should ask them to be more specific about the symptoms they have.

So on a Monday morning when it's time to ring in sick after a heavy weekend on the booze, or because you're simply sick and tired (to be annoyed or disappointed with something) of your dead end job, and your boss, whose continuous flirting with the new secretary makes you sick (to the stomach), asks whats wrong, you should simply reply, "I'm not very well, i'm sick as a dog". So now you're off sick, on the sick or on sick leave, for which it's a good idea to get a sick note from your doctor to keep your sick boss off your back.

History Taking - The Socrates Pain Assessment Tool

2011-10-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

Anyone who's ever taken a medical history will know that it involves the skill of asking a lot of specific and personal questions. If a patient presents with pain then there are at least 8 questions that you should ask about that symptom alone. Fortunately, the great founding father of western philosophy (love of wisdom) also lends his name to a very handy little learning tool. The SOCRATES pain assessment mnemonic is a simple way of helping medical history takers remember 8 quick fire questions that can be asked to any patient in any type of pain. You name it; abdo, lower back, cardiac, pleuritic, this method covers all bases.

So let's take the first letter 'S', which stands for 'Site'. If it isn't perfectly clear from your patients body language, then the first question should be, "where (about) is the pain?", "where does it hurt?" or to be more precise, "where exactly is the pain?". 'O' stands for 'Onset", so you should lead on with the question, "when did the pain start?". But what about the remaining 'CRATES?'

condemned for corrupting the Athenian youth and impiety

To find out more visit our resorces page and download free SOCRATES worksheets and mp3s. Incidentally, the original Socrates died of hemlock poisoning, he was of course wrongly accused, but how would you treat this nowadays? Contact number for the poison centre anyone?

First Aid Skills

2011-10-03T14:52:00.000-07:00

Talking of first aid (well in the last post), if you were put to the test, how would you treat somebody with a nose bleed (epistaxis) or the unthinkable scenario of a choking child? Why don't you test your first aid skills at the BBC website and improve your medical English at the same time. Enjoy.

In case of emergency...

2011-09-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

All healthcare professionals should be able to respond to most medical emergencies, even if that just means giving first aid or basic life support (BLS). For anyone who wants to work with English speaking patients, then 'emergency medical English' should be the foundation of the communication process.

A quick and accurate patient history is vital in order to administer the right emergency treatment, and so requires a quick and systematic line of questioning. Anyone who has got down on the floor with 'resus Annie' will know the basic question, "are you ok?" is quick and simple, but can help to determine a patients level of consciousness. But what follows on from that? What would you then ask someone who has sustained a head injury, or what specific questions would you ask someone with chest pain?

Free downloads on our resources page

As a result we have developed an 'emergency medical English' course, which targets the most common medical emergencies. At the centre of each case is a 'model dialogue' (mp3), in which you can hear a British emergency doctor taking a history. A key component of the course is the fact that most patients will use a lot of colloquialisms, so if a patient asks, "whats wrong with me?", it's important to avoid 'professional medical English' or medical jargon, and use language that the patient will understand. "Well, i think you're having a heart attack" is much more useful than "i think you're having a myocardial infarction". Reassurance is vital in a medical emergency, and patients will feel reassured if they know what is happening.

The first case is cardiac chest pain. You can download the first set of mp3 files for free from our RME resources page. If you want free worksheets to accompany the files then contact us, all of our details are on our website.

Subliminal Learning

2011-09-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

BBC iplayer Health Check programme

As an expat living in Poland, i've found that a cheap, easy and convenient way to learn Polish is to simply turn the radio on and let my subconscious do the work. I just let it play in the background whilst i'm busy washing mushrooms or lazily surfing the web. There have been many social occasions when i have found myself producing polish words and phrases without knowing where they came from. "Juz teraz w kinach!", which translates as "in cinemas now!", you don't know how many times this one can come in handy! Or one of my favourites, "dziś będzie 22 stopni", "today it will be 22 degrees". Incidentally if a patient's temperature is 37.2°C, then we say, "the patient's temp is 37 point 2 degrees". Saying "celsius" at the end is optional.

For those of you who are serious about improving your medical English, then why not give the BBC radio iplayer a go? It's here that you'll find health check, a weekly radio programme that explores topical subjects related to health and medicine. You can also download podcasts of previous episodes from the BBC Health Check podcast page. So, what are you waiting for? Just click play, carry on with what you were doing and let the mind expansion commence! Enjoy.

Water

2011-09-19T08:18:00.000-07:00

A client of mine is a Polish GP and Paediatrician. A very nice chap in fact. He has his own practice in Poland and travels to the UK every 2 weeks to work weekend and out-of-hours shifts for a primary care trust (PCT).

Having originally helped him to get through his IELTS test in order to work for the PCT, he continues to have regular conversation classes. Following his first weekend in the UK, he returned with a multitude of stories and enthusiasm. "You know? They put milk in my tea!". Yes, this remains a novelty for many Poles, and no, we don't stop at 5 o'clock for tea! We do drink it by the barrel load though, and of course in order to restore the equilibrium we proceed to pee, piddle, wee, urinate, micturate, spend a penny, excrete, take a leak, pass water and for those swayed towards a more vulgar tone, piss for England. Don't even get me started on draining beasts and reptiles!

a wee drip of urine

Dr D will be providing his take on medical English used in the real world by noting commonly used colloquialisms and expressions used by his patients and colleagues. His first insight is the word 'water', "but that's not very 'medical English' doc!", indeed, but as we've seen it can be used to politely say "doctor, i'm having trouble passing water" or "i've got a problem with my water works", and if you suffer from high blood pressure or heart failure, you just may well be prescribed 'water tablets', known in the field as diuretics. May the flow be with you.

Check out our 'word of the week' on our homepage www.realmedicalenglish.com

www.realmedicalenglish.com

2011-09-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

innovative & professional

Welcome to our new blog. We hope that you will find something interesting to help you improve your medical English. You can also visit our website www.realmedicalenglish.com for more information about our language and recruitment services.
If you need any help or information about what we do then please contact us at:
contact@realmedicalenglish.com