English Vocabulary for visiting the DOCTOR

Hi. I'm Gill from www.engvid.com, and oh dear,

I've been working all day, I've got a terrible headache.

I think I need to see the doctor. But later. I have to put you first,

all of you watching. You're my priority. So, let's have a look today.

The subject of the lesson is visiting the doctor

when you have a headache or a pain somewhere else, if you're feeling

sick, all of those things.

So, visiting the doctor. Going to the GP's surgery. Now, in the UK a doctor who has a...

Where you go to them in a building, it's called their surgery.

It doesn't mean they cut you open and do surgery.

It's not that kind of surgery. That's done in a hospital in an operating

theatre, but this is like... Often it's just an ordinary house type of building, you go

in, you see the doctor. It's called the doctor's surgery. And GP is sometimes used. It stands

for "General Practitioner". It just means that doctor deals with all kinds of different

problems. People come in off the street when they have something wrong with them.

So, visiting the doctor. First of all, you have to make an appointment. It's not called

a meeting. It's an appointment. You can either phone, go in. Some doctors you can book online

through their website, making an appointment. Then you go in to see the doctor or possibly

a nurse, some surgeries have nurses as well as doctors. You go in to see the doctor or

to see the nurse. Okay? You have to describe your symptoms, like, what is wrong. My headache.

Or: "Oh, feeling sick", that's a symptom, what you're feeling that is wrong, why you

are there. Describe the symptoms. And we will look at some specific symptoms in the second

half of the lesson. Right.

You may, depending on what the problem is, the doctor or the nurse may want to give you

a physical examination. They want to sort of feel things and have a look, and... So

sometimes you may want someone, if you're a lady, you may want a female doctor. If you're

a man, you may want to see a male doctor. In the UK it's very easy to ask for whichever

you prefer. If it's a bit embarrassing, you may want to see a doctor who is the same gender

as you. So that's okay. Right.

When you see the doctor and the doctor decides what kind of medication you need or medicine,

medication, the doctor gives you a piece of paper which is called a prescription which

is for medicine, either pills... Another word for "pills" is "tablets", little things you

take out of a bottle and swallow. It might be cream. If you've burnt your skin, you might

have some cream to put on to heal it. Or liquid if you need something, like to drink some

kind of tonic. There may be a liquid in a bottle that you have to drink. Okay.

You've got your prescription, piece of paper, you have to go and get the medicine because

the doctor at the surgery does not usually give you the medication. You have to go, you

have to take your prescription to a pharmacy. The other name for "pharmacy" is "chemist"

or "chemist shop" where they have a place where they keep lots of pills, all sorts of

drugs and things, legal drugs I hasten to add. When you say "drugs", people sometimes

think: "Oh, illegal." But no, these are drugs. Medicine is drugs. Okay? So you go to get

your prescription, you get your medication.

The instructions on the bottle or on the container tells you the dosage, how much to take. Maybe

two pills per day, four pills per day, one pill after each meal, that kind of thing.

That's the dosage or the dose. And how often, the frequency; once a day, twice a day, so on.

Hopefully with one set of medication you will be better within a few days, but if there

is still a problem after a few days and you've taken all your pills or whatever, you may

have to make a return visit to the doctor. So another appointment. You may need a repeat

prescription, which is more... More drugs because the first drugs haven't worked.

A repeat prescription for the same thing. If the doctor decides to try different drugs,

then it will be a different prescription, not a repeat prescription. Okay, so that's

just the general introduction to the whole process, and we will now move on and have

a look at the symptoms and how to describe what is wrong. Okay.

Okay, so here we have the various symptoms that you may have to describe to the doctor

or to the nurse. First of all, the word "ache" is pronounced like a "k". It looks like "h",

but it's pronounced: "ake" with a "k" sound. You can have a backache. Oh, back is aching.

Stomach ache. It means generally some kind of pain. Stomach ache, ear ache, tooth ache.

If you have tooth ache you should really see the dentist rather than the doctor.

You can say: "I have an ache in my stomach", "I have an ache in my shoulder",

anything like that. Okay?

"Hurt" is a useful word. "My head is hurting", "My arm is hurting." Any part of the body

you can say is hurting. Or: "My head hurts", "My arm hurts",

"My knee hurts." Or: "I have hurt my head."

Maybe you hit it on something. "I have hurt my elbow", "I've hurt my shoulder."

Anything like that. Okay.

With the word "pain": "I have a pain in my head", "A pain in my shoulder",

"A pain in my stomach". Anything like that. "Pain in my foot", any part of the body.

Okay, so if you have a high temperature, if you've put a thermometer in your mouth and

waited a few minutes, then you look and you see it's too high and you're also feeling

very hot, you say you have a fever. "I have a fever." Or: "I'm feeling feverish."

Feverish, okay. Or: "I have a high temperature." Okay.

Cough. [Coughs], that sort of thing. Cough. If you just have a little cough, it's probably

nothing, but if it continues for several days or weeks, then it's important to see the doctor.

So, you can say: "I have a cough" or "I have a bad cough." Or: "I can't stop coughing."

Especially if it's been going on for some time. "I can't stop coughing." Okay?

Then we have words like "ill", "well", "unwell". "Unwell" means the same as ill or sick.

"I'm feeling ill" or "I'm feeling unwell." Or to use the negative of well: "I don't feel well."

Or: "I haven't been feeling well", is another way of saying that. Okay.

So, moving on, a little bit like "hurt" is "injured". That's if you've actually had an

accident of some sort. "I have injured my hand." Maybe it got bent. Perhaps you fell

on the floor and your hand was bent. "I have injured my hand", "I have injured my knee",

anything like that.

"Sore" is sometimes if you scratch yourself or maybe it's your throat that can be sore.

If you're going to get a cold or the flu, you get a sore throat first because of the

bacteria in your throat. Anyway, with "sore", you can say: "I have a sore hand",

"I have a sore throat", or my... "My arm is sore."

Things like that. "My knee is sore." Okay.

"Tired", we often get tired if we've been working really hard, but if you're ill

you can feel tired, more tired than normal. "I'm feeling tired." Or even more strong:

"I'm feeling exhausted." "Exhausted" is just, ah, you can't do anything. You feel so tired.

Okay.

Three things that happen, sort of accidents again, burn, you can burn yourself, you can

scold yourself, you can cut yourself or it happens by accident.

To burn is a sort of a dry burn.

If you have boiling water which accidentally maybe splashes your hand, that

is a scold when it's a wet heat. Okay? So that's dry heat, burn. Wet heat is a scold.

Cut, if you've accidentally... You've been cutting vegetables and you happen to catch

your finger, oo, that's a cut. So: "I have burnt my hand",

"I have scolded my arm", "I have cut my finger",

things like that. Okay?

And then finally, if you're feeling dizzy it means, ah, it's your head and you feel

you could fall over. You're just... Your balance is going. You could just fall over, you just

feel dizzy. If you go round and round in circles and then stop, you can feel dizzy. That can

happen sometimes. But if you haven't been going round and round in circles and making

yourself dizzy but you're feeling dizzy and you don't know why, then it's probably a good

idea to see the doctor and say: "I'm feeling dizzy", or:

"I've been feeling dizzy, and it's been going on for some time now.

The last few days I've been feeling dizzy."

Okay, so these are a lot of the symptoms you can have and how to describe them.

So I hope you found that a useful, practical lesson.

If you'd like to answer a quiz on this subject, go to www.engvid.com.

And if you'd like to subscribe to my YouTube channel, that would be great.

Thank you. And looking forward to seeing you again very soon.

Okay. Bye for now.