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How Do You Talk To The Doctor In English

Okay, so I thought it might be really fun if… You’ve seen my videos, right? Yeah, yeah. You know I have costumes? Yes! Let’s imagine you come to London and then you have a pain or some problem that you really need a doctor for. What do you do? How do you describe things? What might your doctor say and how do you understand everything? And like that, we’re in your doctor’s surgery! Studio magic! This is my doctor surgery, it’s very similar to the set we were chatting on. It’s so similar but it’s not! So one thing I love that you do on your channel is that you’ll watch an episode of house and you kind of try and diagnose the patient but you explain it in such an easy way. Oh, thanks. So I thought maybe we could practice something like that; I’ll have a symptom and maybe you can diagnose me? Sure, let’s do it! Let’s do it.

In this scenario as well, if you are struggling with English; we always have options to get interpreters as well. You know in hospital, we can often get another member of staff, who can sit in, who may be able to speak the language or we can get people on the phone. So that’s always an option we can use. So that’s an option then? Absolutely! You could have an interpreter? Exactly! Perfect. But! You should try! Why not? So first of all whenever we talk to a patient, the first thing we want to explore is ask you about what’s brought you in. So tell me about what’s been going on. Tell me about what’s brought you in today. Okay well, for two days, I’ve been having cramps. So notice grammatically I said, I’ve been having cramps. I used present perfect because it’s from a past time until now. I’ve been having cramps. Okay, so with all symptoms, something that a medical thing that’s going on; that’s what we call a symptom with the doctor we want to explore that symptom in more detail. Okay. So with this particular one, I want to ask you, where do you have the pain? it feels like it’s in the bottom of my stomach, in the lower part of my stomach. Okay, so the stomach, we actually think of being quite high up but actually people think the stomach means the whole of the abdomen, the whole of the tummy as well but we can use it interchangeably. So that’s why it’s important for us. It doesn’t matter if you use these language terms. We have to identify that and find out so I might say, can you show me where you’re having the pain? So you could get me to point out. I told you I was stupid. So but no, that’s really interesting. So in English we say, my stomach or my belly. Just this whole area is my stomach or my belly, right? Okay cool, so. So I know where the pain is now. Right. And I’m, and you’ve given me a bit of a hint, that’s been going on for two days so with this, I’d want to know what I’d call the Fido. So I want to know its frequency so I’d ask you, how often do you have to paint? It’s about every, every hour and it lasts about 10 minutes. Okay, good. So within that as well, you’ve also given me the duration so that’s the D in Fido. So you give me the frequency so how often you get it and you’ve given me the duration. So when you get it, how long it lasts for. So the I is for the intensity so I’d like you to give me a score, like how at worst, how bad is the pain? Okay so in general, it’s about a 5 but last night it was so bad that I fainted. To faint means you lose consciousness. You fall over or another phrasal verb to pass out. So I could say last night, the pain was so bad; I passed out. Ok, so I want to explore those symptoms of what led you to pass out but we’ll leave that for the moment. So the O stands for the onset so tell me about what happened when it first came on. Okay, so for about a week it’s been hurting a little bit but progressively, over time it’s, it has been getting worse. Okay, fine. So with this particular symptom, I’d want to ask a few more questions. We actually use a slightly different framework but this isn’t a medical thing. We’d normally use Socrates so a few more mnemonics to explore but one of the things in Socrates is does the pain radiates anywhere? So radiate means does it move from one place to another. So you said the pains here so does the pain go anywhere else? Yes it’s moved to the side now. Okay, fine and have you had any changes in your urine or any changes opening your bowels. Nope, they are beautiful. Very good so we will kind of end that particular roleplay thing there, right? Because we kind of, I’d worry about something like an appendicitis. So you’re a young person with abdominal pain that started centrally and is now radiated to the side now. And that’s what we’d worry about in that circumstance and you’d also have other symptoms so feel generally unwell fevers but because the pain made you pass out; you know, that’s the type of thing we’d be looking at.

Okay, what happens next? Like what questions would I expect? Yeah, so then I’d want to know about any medical conditions you have. So your past medical history. How does that question go? So I’d say, anything that you see your doctor regular about or any medical conditions you have? We’ll say no. Cool and then I’d ask any previous operations you’ve had. Okay, I had my tonsils removed, a few years ago. Is that relevant? It is relevant because although it may not be relevant to this body system; we know that you may have had certain medications, certain anesthetic drugs, that we know you’re probably comfortable having again. Okay.

So then, after we’ve done the kind of looked at your past medical history and past surgical history; I’d talk about any medications that you’re on, so I’d ask you any drugs that you take regularly. So this is an interesting thing. So you said drugs, now if your doctor asks you about your, what drugs you take; probably you don’t mean heroin. That would still be important to tell your doctor but when we talk about drugs, we’re not talking about illicit drugs so drugs you smoke or drugs you inject. We’re talking about medications you take to treat medical conditions. Right, so do I take medication? We don’t say, I eat a pill or I eat medicine. We’d say, I take the medicine. Or, if it’s, maybe long-term, I could say, I’m on the medicine name. So, I don’t know, last month I was on antibiotics for an infection. Fine and then within, when I’m exploring your medications, I’d want to know about any allergies, any drug allergies. Okay, perfect. Now, if I have an allergy, I use this structure. I’m allergic to, name of thing. So this is true, I’m allergic to penicillin. Okay. I’ve just told everyone how to kill me. That’s all right. We won’t be giving you that. You should be given in that. You could also say, I have an allergy to penicillin or I have a penicillin allergy.

So the last thing we talk about, in the history, after we’ve done the drug history; we talk about your family history. So ask you if you have any medical conditions that run in your family. Nope we’re pretty, we’re a healthy Bunch. Good, good, good and then we’d ask about your social history. So I’d basically keep it very open. So I’d say, what job do you do? I’m a teacher. Yeah and I say, have you had any foreign travel recently? Um, I went on holiday to Italy. Okay and but no where else outside of that, in the last few months? No. Cool and then I’ll ask, do you smoke cigarettes? No. Have you ever smoked cigarettes? No. Okay, and do you drink alcohol? Yes. So then I’ll ask you, what you typically drink in a week? Um maybe I have one or two beers a week. Okay, so one or two pints of beers. Yeah. Okay, fine. So there’s about three units in a beer so I’d say you have allowed six units of alcohol a week. So that may be relevant but in those quantities it wouldn’t be relevant. Cool.

Okay and the last thing, we should be talking about is any concerns you have. So how are you feeling? Is there any particular worries you have? Because very often people know it’s not just they come with illness; they have preconceived ideas and worries about why they’re coming to the doctor. Right. So it should always be a opportunity so I’d say is there anything worrying you that brought you in today? Yeah, I’ve probably got cancer. That’s always my, that’s always my worry. If anything hurts, I’m dying; I’ve got cancer and I’ll google it. You’re so right, google often doesn’t help these things because cancer can have lots of symptoms but a doctor will be able to take a look at the whole picture and be able to reassure you. Okay, so I don’t have cancer? With the given symptoms here, it would be very low down on my list. Okay, good. That’s, that’s put my mind ease.

So then, after we’ve done our history, would then do an examination of you. So in this instance, with the abdominal pain, we’d probably want to take some observations; so check your blood pressure, check your heart rate, measure your temperature and a few other things and also want to have a feel of your tummy or your belly as we said earlier. And then, from there, organize some investigations like blood tests and possibly a scan. You as a patient, you might say, I’m going to have a blood test or what would you say as a doctor? How would you tell me that? So we can say, I’m going to take a blood test or take some of your blood or take a blood sample. It’s, it’s very much a take action because you’ll give it us something. Right, you’re not borrowing it. Not usually.

And finally, might I need surgery? Okay for what, with this particular condition, that we’re thinking about, absolutely. I mean, that, this would be an emergency. So if you were presented to your family doctor, we’d want to refer you into the hospital for these blood tests and for the scan because we can do that very quickly. We can’t do them in a GP practice straight away. And then from there, you will certainly be under the surgical team to rule out the possibility of needing surgery. Okay, but if I do need surgery, the way I can say it is, I’m going to have surgery. Or have an operation. Or have an operation.

See, now, you’re an English teacher. That’s it. So let’s get out of your practice. Let’s get out of your surgery…