Free English Class! Topic: Health Care and Medicine 👩‍⚕️💊🩺 (Lesson Only)

Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about health

care and medicine. In this English lesson I'll talk about

all of the words and phrases you need to know to visit the

doctor. To go to the hospital. Even to just have a

conversation about your health. How you're feeling. If you're

feeling ill or sick or maybe you've hurt yourself somehow.

Uh in this lesson we'll talk about some of the things you

need to know in order to be able to talk about that. I'm

Bob the Canadian. I do these lessons every Friday. It's so

good to be here to do this English lesson about healthcare

Medicine. Before we get started I did want to say a couple of

things. One there is a study pack for this lesson. Yes I'm

probably going to mention this every Friday. It's at Bob the

Canadian. com. There's also a link in the description below

if you want to go have a look. There's crossword puzzles and

all the slides and matching worksheets and all kinds of

support materials that you can use to help yourself remember

all of these words and phrases. A doctor So the main person

that you want to see if you're not feeling well or if you've

hurt yourself would be the doctor. Uh the doctor is the

person who went to school I think for seven years or more

to learn about the human body. To learn about diseases and

illness and what to do if you break a bone. A doctor is a

very very smart person. I think if you become a doctor you have

to memorize a lot of Um because you need to be able to talk to

people and figure out what's wrong with them. You might also

when you visit see a nurse. So a nurse is someone who has gone

to school not quite as long as a doctor but is still very much

a health care professional. A nurse is probably going to be

the first person you see if you make a doctor's appointment. I

don't know if you knew that. When I go to the doctor I make

an appointment And then I go and they call me into the

doctor's office and usually a nurse comes in first. She takes

my blood pressure. She takes my temperature usually with a

little thermometer she puts in my ear. And she records a whole

bunch of those things. Usually I I have to step on a scale.

And then she usually asks me or he usually asks me what is

wrong? And they'll make some notes. And then after a little

while the doctor will come. So the nurse is someone once again

is someone who has been trained to take care of people who have

health concerns to figure out if they are sick to figure out

if they're feeling pain somewhere where the pain is

coming from and they work with a doctor in order to help you

figure out what you need to do to feel better. A surgeon is a

special kind of doctor. A surgeon is a doctor who does

surgery. So if you are someone maybe you have pain in your

stomach. Maybe like me you have heart problems. And they need

to actually do surgery. A surgeon will then there's no

other nice way to say this. They will open you up. And they

will fix you inside and then they will sew you back up

again. I'm making this motion here but when I had heart

surgery they actually went in through the side. I still have

a scar right here. They went in through the side to fix my

heart. So a surgeon is a special kind of doctor.

Probably with More years of training. For sure with more

years of training. Who is able to do surgery and we also say

able to operate. And then we have what's called a

specialist. Once one of our kids was jumping on the

trampoline and they and she broke a bone in her leg. And

when we went to get X-rays the doctor couldn't see a fracture.

So he sent us to a specialist. When we went to the specialist

she could see on the X-ray a really minor break in her leg

bone. So a special is someone who does more training for a

specific kind of illness or injury. So let's say you have a

sore back. You might be sent to a specialist. Your family

doctor your regular doctor. What we also call a general

practitioner might say hey I understand your back is sore

but I think I need to send you to a specialist for further

consultation. So you might get sent to someone who knows more

than your regular someone called a specialist. A

paramedic is someone with medical training who goes to

the place where the injured person is or the person who is

sick. Usually in an ambulance to pick them up. So a paramedic

knows first aid. A paramedic knows how to diagnose and treat

you immediately at least enough to get you to a hospital. Okay.

So if you're in a car accident the paramedics will show up and

they will help you into the ambulance and bring you to a

hospital. So a paramedic like a doctor and nurse has special

training to figure out what's wrong and what you need and

then they will quickly get you to a hospital to see nurses and

doctors. And like I mentioned they usually come in an

ambulance or they come in an air ambulance. So an ambulance

is a vehicle specially to pick people up if they are having

some sort of health problems or if they have been injured. When

I used to work on a construction site one day

someone fell and injured themselves and we had to call

the ambulance. In my country you dial 911 on your phone. I

know the numbers are different in other countries. But we had

to call 9one1 and an ambulance came to pick up the man who had

fallen. So the ambulance ambulance came it had its siren

on and they put the man on a gurney and they put them in the

ambulance and the paramedics drove away with him. Once a

number of years ago there was a really bad car accident down my

road. And we noticed that the air ambulance had landed there.

An air ambulance is a helicopter that is designed to

do the same job as a normal ambulance. So both an air

ambulance and an ambulance have all the right equipment in the

back to take care of people as well as the right people to

take care of you. When the air ambulance comes though it

usually means it is a very very bad accident. Medical centre or

clinic. So when you go for a doctor's appointment sometimes

you go to the hospital but sometimes you go to a medical

centre or to a clinic. So in Canada at least if you are sick

and it's not really severe. It's not really bad. You would

probably just go to the medical centre. So let's say I had a

stuffed up nose and a fever for three days in a row. I wouldn't

go to the hospital. Sorry I'm clicking too many slides here.

I would instead go to a medical centre. There are hospitals in

all of our major cities. But there are medical centres in

most towns and cities. And in the city there's more than one

medical centre. So usually it's easier to see a doctor if you

have minor health problems at a medical centre. And then if you

go you'll end up sitting in a waiting room. A waiting room is

a room with lots of chairs. If you have gone to see the doctor

and if it's not an emergency you will probably have to sit

in the waiting room. Sometimes you wait a long time in a

waiting room. It's not always fun to go to a waiting room to

wait. But eventually they will call your name and then you

will go in to see the doctor or nurse. Doctor's office. So when

you go to visit the doctor you will eventually be in the

doctor's office. And the doctor's office is an office

but it's also a room where there's a bed and there's a

heart rate monitor and a stethoscope and all of the

things the doctor needs to look in your ears and up your nose

and whatever the doctor needs to do but you will definitely

beast. Um eventually you'll be in the waiting room and they'll

say okay the doctor will see you now and you will go to the

doctor's office. In which case you will probably see the nurse

first and then the doctor in Canada. A hospital. So a

hospital is a large building. Usually in a big city where

they take care of people. At a hospital you can go to a

hospital to have a baby. You can go to a hospital if your

arm is broken to get a cast. You can go to a hospital for

heart surgery. You can go to a hospital for many things. All

of the things that might be happening to you. Maybe you

have cancer and you need to go for cancer treatment. You would

go to a for that. So a hospital is a place where doctors and

nurses and surgeons work and it's a place where you go if

you need health care. And if something happens let's say you

hurt yourself but someone can still bring you to the

hospital. So let's say on the farm I twisted my ankle really

badly. Um Jen would bring me to the emergency room. We wouldn't

call an ambulance. If you're in a lot of pain but not too much

pain. And if not in any immediate danger. Usually you

will go to the hospital and you will go to the emergency room.

So that's probably a good example. I once broke my toe.

Um I I hit my toe and my little toe broke and then Jen took me

to the emergency room and the doctor fixed it for me. Here's

how the doctor fixed my toe. She said so I'm going to have

to put your toe straight again. In order to do that I'm going

to have to pull your toe and move it over And I'm going to

do that on the count of three. And then before she even

started counting she did it. And then my toe was straight

and they taped my toe to my other toe and I had to keep it

that way for a few weeks. So the doctor tricked me. But I I

think it was a good trick. Symptoms. When you are not

feeling well you have symptoms. When you have a cold your nose

is stuffed up. When you have a the flu you might have a sore

throat. You might have a fever where you're feeling very very

hot. You might just feel tired. So when you have symptoms it

can help the doctor or nurse figure out what's wrong with

you. You'll sit down and they'll say so how are you

feeling? What are the symptoms? Oh I have a stuffed up nose and

my ear hurts. And then they can use that to diagnose what is

wrong. So a diagnosis is when the doctor or nurse looks at

your symptoms and uses those symptoms to figure out what is

wrong. So a simple one would be arm hurts and is not straight

anymore. Symptom or diagnosis broken heart. Sorry that was a

bad example. But if you were to go and say my symptoms are

fever, sore throat, difficulty breathing, they might diagnose

you. The diagnosis might be that you have COVID. Right? So

we all are familiar with those symptoms now. And then they

will recommend treatment. So treatment might be to take

antibiotics. To take medicine. Treatment might be that give

you a needle and you're good to go. So once they know the

symptoms and then once they have a diagnosis then they will

decide on what the treatment will be. What they will do or

what you'll need to do in order to feel better. Usually they

just write you a prescription. Send you to the pharmacy and

you get some pills depending on what's wrong with you but they

decide on a course of treatment. We're all familiar I

think with what infection is. This is when something gets

into your body that isn't supposed to be there. It's

usually a bacteria. So you might have a bacterial

infection. If you cut yourself I actually cut myself the other

day. It's very minor. I don't know if you can see that. Um

but I made sure that I washed my hands and I put some special

cream there because I don't want to get an infection. So an

infection is when some other organism usually bacteria gets

into your body and starts to multiply. And then usually you

end up with a fever at some point. And then they will give

you antibiotics. So if my finger got infected they would

say what are your symptoms? And I would say well I cut my

finger and now it's really big and red. And they might say

well the diagnosis is that you have an infection. The

treatment is that you will need to take antibiotics. By the way

we would call these capsules. You can call them pills. Um but

at opposed to tablets. These are not tablets. These are

capsules. Um so an antibiotic is something that will kill the

bacteria that is in your body. So that is generally what they

will prescribe if you have an infection. The doctor or nurse

might come in with a stethoscope. This is a special

tool they put in your in their ears not your ears. They put in

their ears and then they can listen to your heart rate.

Sometimes the doctor or nurse will look at their watch and

they'll see what your heart rate is. Or they'll listen To

see if your heart rate if you have an irregular heartbeat. So

normally your heart goes like but maybe yours skips a beat.

Or maybe it goes slow and fast slow and fast. Or maybe you

have an elevated heart rate where your heart rate is higher

than normal. My heart rate right now is ninety-four.

That's pretty high for right now. Normally when I'm sitting

it's around 65 or 70. I have a very healthy heart rate. But I

think I'm excited to do this lesson stethoscope I should say

it a few more times stethoscope try to say that word it is a

challenge even for English speakers there's also something

called blood pressure so I normally have average or below

average blood pressure I have never had high blood pressure

blood pressure is a measure of the pressure of your blood

inside of your veins and arteries I think veins and

arteries this isn't a medical lesson by a medicine

professional but so take it with a great assault. Um they

will put a blood pressure cuff on your arm and then they will

take your blood pressure either with a machine or sometimes the

doctor will do it with their stethoscope and their watch.

They'll actually take your blood pressure as well. Or not

their watch. They have like a dial a pressure gauge I think.

So blood pressure. When I was in the hospital they took my

temperature and my blood pressure and blood sugar They

all regularly. Um thermometer. So a thermometer is a device

that measures the temperature of your body. If the

temperature of your body is above I don't know thirty-six

to 38 degrees is probably normal. Uh I should probably

look that up normal body temp in Celsius. Here we go. 37

Celsius. So between 36 and 37. 2. So what happens if your body

temperature if you take this thermometer and put it under

your armpit or under your tongue we have one too that we

can use to check our kids' temperatures in their ear it

will tell you your body temperature. If it's thirty9 or

forty it that your you have a fever and that is not a good

situation. An X-ray. So sometimes you've hurt yourself

inside your body. Maybe a bone is broken. Maybe you hurt your

finger. Or like me maybe you hurt your little toe. I I'm

pointing to this. This is my pinky finger. My toe is on my

foot. Sorry if I'm confusing you. Um they might need to take

an X-ray. So you will go and they will put you in a room and

push a button and then they'll see the bones inside of your

body. So an X-ray machine shoots X-rays through your

body. Uh and it can go through tissue but it can't go through

the bones. That's probably how it works. I shouldn't try to

describe exactly how these machines work. Anyways if you

have a maybe you've think you broke your leg or you think you

broke your arm you will most likely get an X-ray and then

they will see what is wrong with you. Where you have hurt

yourself. An ultrasound. So this is similar to an X-ray

except it uses sound instead of rays to look inside the body.

This is most commonly used for two things. One if someone is

expecting a baby you will often go for a few ultrasounds. And

they will use the ultrasound wand to see the baby in the

womb. Okay. So when Jen was pregnant we would go for one or

two ultrasounds during the pregnancy. And they would say

yes everything looks good and then we would be happy. You can

even see the heart beating. On an ultrasound. The other major

use of ultrasound is for seeing internal organs. The heart

sometimes the stomach area. The heart they can use an

ultrasound to see the valves in the heart and to make sure that

they are working properly. And it works by sending sound waves

into the body. It's different than X-rays. But still the same

idea. Um something used to get a little bit of a glimpse of

what what is happening in the Weight and height. This is a

pretty common one too when you go to the doctor. No matter

what's wrong with me. If I go to the doctor they want to know

my weight and they want to know my height. Usually the nurse

will take these measurements. Uh the nurse will say hey

before the doctor sees you step onto the scale and he or she

will record my weight and then they'll check my height. It's

usually the same machine. When you're on the scale there's

also a little thing that they can use To check your height.

They just want to see how you're doing. Um and then

sometimes my doctor says the graph for your weight keeps

going up. You need to make it go down. My doctor is always

concerned about my weight. Number one concern. A few

slides here we have vaccination needle syringe and injection.

So a vaccination is a special kind of injection where they

put something into you that helps your body build immunity

to something. Many of us got vaccinations during COVID to

build up our immunity to COVID. So I think we're pretty

familiar with vaccination. Um they use a needle or syringe.

Technically the needle is the sharp point on the end. And the

syringe the bottom part. But we kind of use these words

interchangeably. Like the doctor filled a syringe and

then gave me an injection. Or the doctor filled the needle

and gave me an injection. All of those will work. And then

injection I've used a few times. This is when they I

don't like talking about this. Where they put the needle in to

your arm or maybe in your the one of the cheeks of your butt

or maybe into the muscle on the leg. There are different places

where they put injections. Usually it's the shoulder where

the injection goes. But never a fun time. I always look away if

I ever get an injection. I look away. I can't watch while I get

an injection. I feel like maybe a I would faint if I did that.

Blood test. Sometimes the doctor or a nurse wants to know

what's in your blood. They can tell a lot about what's wrong

by looking at your blood and you might need a blood test. In

order to do this they put a a rubber band around your arm.

You can see that my vein see my vein there. They put a rubber

band around your arm and then they put a needle into your

vein and they take out blood. Send it to a lab it gets tested

and they can figure out what's wrong with you. So I used a few

phrases there. You go for blood work. I used that phrase

earlier. It's a blood test. They take blood. Uh you might

say oh I have to go I have to go to the clinic because they

need to take blood for a blood test. Vitals or vital signs.

You'll hear this quite often if you watch a TV show that takes

place in a hospital. Vitals include all of the things they

can measure. Your heart rate, your temperature, the amount of

oxygen in your blood. They hook you up to little machines like

this one. In this machine can kind of keep track of all of

the things that they can measure easily. Again

temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen level. Those are

probably the biggest ones. They even have ones that check your

blood pressure every 10 or 15 minutes. They'll put a blood

pressure cuff on your arm. And then every 10 minutes it will

all symptoms squeeze your arm and the machine will take your

blood pressure. So that is what we call vitals or vital signs

intravenous. Sometimes they need to put something into your

bloodstream directly. Not an injection. They need to put

like maybe saline or some other kind of medicine into you. Um

and then they will put a needle in your arm or somewhere else.

Maybe your hand. And they will hang a bag up and it will drip.

And whatever's in the bag will slowly go into your

bloodstream. So the were a few times where I had an IV hooked

up to me. So we don't always say intravenous. We just say

IV. Uh and on a hospital TV show you might hear them say

you know let's get an IV going. Uh which means they're going to

hook that up to you. Bandage. I probably should have put a

bandage on this finger this morning. Are you tired of

looking at that? Oh it won't focus. Oh my camera has decided

not to focus anymore. I don't know why it does that

sometimes. Sometimes my camera just gets a little lazy and

decides not to focus but oh well a bandage is a little

piece of fabric that's sticky that you can put over a small

cut or wound or sore that you have on your body. And then if

you break something they will most likely put on a cast. So a

cast is made out of plaster. It's very very durable. Um I

think they're still made out of plaster. I haven't had a cast

for a very long time. I had a cast once when I was a kid but

I have not had one since then. And what it does is it holds

the bone straight while it heals. It prevents you from you

know putting pressure onto that bone. It keeps it isolated. It

keeps it immobile. While it is healing. And usually you can

choose the colour now. Um one of my kids had a cast eight or

nine years ago. And she was able to choose the colour of

her cast. I think she chose purple. Can't remember. Maybe

pink. Stitches. So if you need stitches like this is a pretty

small wound. This is a pretty small cut. I didn't need

stitches. But if you have a large cut sometimes they need

to use a needle and thread to close the wound. To close the

cut. So this person it looks like they had a pretty serious

cut on their hand. And so they needed stitches. So they went

to the hospital and either the doctor or nurse put stitches in

to close the wound so that it can heal. Crutches. Uh I've

been on crutches once in my life. Uh when I was a kid I

sprained my ankle while playing baseball. Actually twice. I

sprained my ankle once when a cow fell on my leg. Uh because

we grew up on a farm and then once playing baseball. This is

two things that you use so that it's easier to walk when you

have a leg knee or ankle or foot injury. Um if you break a

leg you will probably be on crutches. You might use a

wheelchair for a bit but you will be on crutches. That's how

we say it. Oh he's on crutches right now. He twisted his

ankle. Um you can also use a cane which is just a single

pole but it's more common if you have an injury to be on

crutches for a week or two while your ankle or foot or

knee or leg heals. When you go to see the doctor it doesn't

mean you're going to stay at the hospital. When you go to

the emergency room it doesn't mean you're going to stay

overnight at the hospital. But if it's serious enough you

might be admitted. So I went a hospital once many years ago

and I was admitted. I had a really high fever and I had a

blood infection. So instead of going home they admitted me to

the hospital. That means they found me a bed. They put me in

a room. They put me on an IV. They put antibiotics in the

intravenous into the IV bag. Um and I stayed for a few days

until I was all better. And they put me in a hospital bed.

Now this is definitely different than a normal bed. A

hospital bed go up. It can go down. It has wheels so they can

bring you to different places. Um and honestly they're not

very comfortable I would say. That's maybe they they're not

comfortable because they want you to get better quickly. And

go home. Hospital room. So the room you stay in at a hospital

is simply called a hospital room. And there are a few

different kinds. You can be in a ward. Which means you're in a

room with other people. Or you can be in a private room. Which

means you are in a room by yourself. So when I was in

hospital I was in what's called semi-private. I was in a room

with one other person. Um when I was younger my dad was in the

hospital once and he was in a ward. He was in a room with

three other people. Um so we called these all hospital

rooms. Oh what hospital room is he in? Oh he's in room 2eleven.

Uh it's a ward. There's four people in there or he's in room

212, which is a private room. But all of these would be

called hospital rooms. And then we have have the maternity

ward. Which is the area of the hospital where babies arrive.

I'm not going to explain how this all worked. But if you are

expecting a baby maybe you have a scheduled C section where

they're going to do surgery to remove the baby. Or maybe

you're going to have a natural birth. Either way you would go

to the hospital and they would bring you to the maternity

ward. Where they have rooms where women can give birth. And

then they have rooms where women can stay for a day or two

after they give birth depending on how much care they need. Um

and of course the as well. So that is called the maternity

ward. Uh every one of our kids was born in a hospital in a

maternity ward and then I would go and I was at all of the

births. It's a great experience. Uh and then I could

visit Jen in the maternity ward and see the newly arrived baby.

And then of course hospitals have a lot of wheelchairs. Or

if you have problems walking you might have a wheelchair at

home. A wheelchair is simply a chair A place to sit that has

wheels so that you can move yourself around easily without

walking or someone can push you. Okay. Um so wheelchairs

are pretty common sites at hospitals. In fact if you go to

the emergency room they might even make you sit in a

wheelchair when they bring you to other parts of the hospital.

Even if you don't have sore legs. Like maybe you're out of

breath. Or you just feel really weak. They might say okay sit

in this wheelchair. We will bring you to an observation

room and we will have a look at you.