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, but 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. 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!

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 and ask you where do you

have the pain and 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 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 mm-hmm right okay cool so so I

know where the pain is now right and I'm a 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 and 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 eye 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 too 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 and 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 belt or any medical

conditions you have will say no cool and then I'd ask any previous operations

you've had okay and 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 talked 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 okay 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 the 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 talked about in the history after we've done the drug history we talked

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 we're sort of 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 they're not 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 about six units of

alcohol a week so that may be relevant but in those quantities 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 it would always be an

opportunity so I'd say is there anything worrying units 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 cans

and I'll google it you're so right google often doesn't help these things

because caps 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 - 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 is 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 and finally might I need surgery okay for with this

particular condition yeah 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 seat

now you're an English teacher that's it so let's get out of your practice let's

go of your surgery yup and we're back back in the studio I asked you guys to

send me your questions about medicine in the UK and any medical questions that

you might have we'll answer them for you so let's have a look...