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  • Hi.

  • Welcome to engVid.

  • I'm Adam.

  • In today's video, I'm going to talk to you about going to a hospital or a clinic in an

  • English-speaking country.

  • Now, hopefully, you will never need to know any of the words in this video because nothing

  • will happen to you; but life is life, things do happen, sometimes accidents happen, sometimes

  • things occur unexpectedly, so you may need to go to a hospital or a clinic.

  • A hospital - big building, lots of doctors, lots of equipment.

  • It has an emergency room or an emergency department.

  • A clinic is more like a small doctor's office, and you can walk into...

  • Go into a walk-in clinic, meaning you don't need an appointment.

  • If you have something urgent and you need to speak to a doctor, then you can go here

  • to take care of whatever it is.

  • Now, this is all assuming that you are ambulatory.

  • Now, all of you know "ambulance"; an ambulance carries you to the hospital.

  • If you are ambulatory, it means you don't need an ambulance; you can go on your own

  • two feet.

  • You are mobile, you can stand, you can take yourself to the doctor.

  • Okay?

  • Now, I'm going to talk about this in two ways.

  • First, I'm going to talk about the administrative aspect of going to the hospital, and then

  • I'll talk about the medical aspect.

  • Now, I'm assuming that if the situation is an emergency, someone will go with you.

  • Now, it may be a friend of yours who's also not a native speaker, it may be a roommate,

  • it may be a classmate from your English school.

  • So, everybody should know this stuff; you may need to help somebody, somebody may need

  • to help you.

  • Again, hopefully not, but be prepared.

  • So, you're going to go into the hospital or the walk-in clinic and you're going to check

  • in.

  • Just like you check in at a hotel, you check in at a hospital.

  • You will go and deal with the admitting staff.

  • "Admitting" means they take you in; they admit you, they do all the paperwork, they get you

  • set up or your friend set up to be taken care of.

  • You will fill out a lot of forms; name, information, maybe medical history if that's what they

  • need to know.

  • If there's a situation that you've had in the past, they need to know this.

  • You will fill out all this information, and they will start to process you.

  • Excuse me.

  • They will process you, and you're ready to go or your friend will be ready to go.

  • If you need an x-ray, they will schedule an x-ray to check if you have any broken bones

  • anywhere in you.

  • If you need something like an MRI or a CAT scan, where they do a full body diagnosis

  • and look inside, that's not going to happen at the emergency room because there's always

  • a line up for that.

  • That's not emergency services; if you need it, they will schedule it for a week later-if

  • you're lucky-a month later, etc.

  • Now, it's very important, if you're going to travel overseas, that you have insurance.

  • This is something that you pay for that, if anything happens, all your medical expenses

  • are given back to you.

  • But check your policy.

  • Your policy is the insurance that you signed for; that you paid for.

  • It has all the different rules, it has all the different conditions - make sure you understand

  • these very clearly because it happens often that somebody comes to Canada, or to the US,

  • or to another country, they need to go to the hospital and then they get a bill.

  • The hospital says: "Okay, here.

  • You owe us $5,000."

  • Medical expenses can be very, very high, so you may have to pay upfront, meaning you have

  • to pay at the hospital at the time for anything that they do to you.

  • If you have to go to surgery, you may have to pay $50,000 or whatever the situation.

  • So, be prepared to be able to pay upfront.

  • Now, if you think: "Well, that's what insurance is for.

  • Insurance will pay for all this stuff."

  • Some policies, yes, will pay the hospital directly; some will not.

  • Some will reimburse you.

  • You will be reimbursed when you go home and fill out all the paperwork in your home country.

  • So make sure you understand what's going on.

  • If you get to the hospital and you don't have a credit card with you, you might be in some

  • serious trouble; they might not let you leave the hospital until somebody comes and pays

  • for you.

  • Okay?

  • So, this is all the administrative stuff.

  • Now let's look at what actually happens, medically speaking; doctors, nurses, etc.

  • Okay, now let's look at the actual action that's going to happen when you come to the

  • hospital.

  • So, first of all, you will be looked after by the attending nurse, or doctor, or resident.

  • A resident is still a student; he or she is still working towards a specialization or

  • just towards their final certificate.

  • So, it'll be the attending nurse, or the on-call nurse or the doctor.

  • Okay?

  • That's the one taking care of that shift-okay?-at the hospital.

  • Now, if you came in an ambulance, then the paramedic will have already started the whole

  • process in the ambulance; but if you're walking into the clinic or the hospital, you will

  • be looked at by the attending doctor or nurse.

  • So, the first thing they will do is perform triage.

  • So, we use this verb.

  • "Triage" is the process of separating all the injured, or wounded, or sick people in

  • order of priority.

  • Okay?

  • Whoever needs to go in first will go in first; whoever can wait will wait.

  • So, this process basically looks very quickly: "Are you bleeding?"

  • Then they have to go stop the bleeding.

  • If you're not bleeding, and your heart is pumping okay, and your brain...

  • And you can still function and speak, then you can wait; it's not that bad, and you may

  • have to wait a few hours, but you will eventually get in.

  • Those who need care fastest go in first.

  • So, this begins with a diagnosis.

  • The nurse or doctor will look at you, they will try to understand the situation; if you're

  • having pain, if something's broken, if you're bleeding, if you're hurt in whatever way - they

  • will figure out what the problem is and what the treatment should be.

  • And, from there, you start your process of being treated.

  • Okay?

  • Diagnosis leads to treatment.

  • Now, most of the time what they will do first is take your blood pressure to make sure that

  • it's not too high; that you're not going to have a heart attack any second.

  • Right?

  • If your blood pressure is sustainable; if you can sit and wait for a while, then you'll

  • sit and wait.

  • If your blood pressure is too high, they may need to take you in right away and bring it

  • down, or do something else.

  • They may hook you up to an IV.

  • So, an IV is, like, a needle.

  • It goes into your arm, so that's why it's called "intravenous".

  • It goes into your vein, and it feeds you most likely saline solution - water with a little

  • bit of salt just to make sure you're okay.

  • It's, like...

  • Keeps you alive, like food, but I'm not going to get into the details.

  • So, they'll hook you up to an IV.

  • Sometimes they may have to hook you up to a catheter.

  • If you have trouble and you're, like, peeing, for example, and you don't want to do it all

  • over the floor, they'll hook you up with a tube, you'll go into a bag, and you'll wait

  • until it's your turn to see the doctor.

  • If you're bleeding, then the first thing they're going to do is stop the bleeding.

  • If you lose too much blood, you can pass out and worse things can happen.

  • So, first thing: Stop the bleeding.

  • Disinfect the wound.

  • So, if you're cut somewhere and you're bleeding from it, they have to clean it with alcohol

  • or whatever other disinfectant - make sure it's clean.

  • And if it's really gushing...

  • "Gushing" means bleeding very fast and a lot.

  • If you're gushing blood, they have to stop it and then they may have to staple the cut

  • or stitch the cut.

  • Staple, like a stapler, like pieces that: "Chicka-chicka-chicka-chick".

  • And they take the skin and they close it, and they staple it.

  • Or stitch with, like, a needle and thread, and they close it, stop the bleeding, and

  • then take care of it after.

  • And then put on dressing.

  • "Dressing", like gauze, like the white stuff that goes around and makes sure everything's

  • okay; doesn't bleed anymore.

  • If it's a very serious emergency, they may have to rush you into the operating theater

  • where they will perform surgery.

  • If they need to open you up to get inside to fix something, then they'll take you to

  • this place.

  • It's called the operating theater; sometimes it's called the surgery, the surgery room,

  • etc.

  • If they ask you to just go and sit, because you may be sitting for a long time but you

  • are in pain, they'll give you a painkiller.

  • Now, they may give you a pill or they just may just give you an injection; a needle - morphine

  • or something like that.

  • Or they'll just give you a sedative.

  • A sedative helps kill the pain, but it also helps calm you down so you can relax, and

  • just sit on the chair, and when it's your turn you will be called in, a doctor will

  • look at you, assess the situation, and take care of you.

  • If you're going to an emergency room, bring a lot of patience with you.

  • It doesn't matter how much pain you're in; somebody else might be in more pain, and they...

  • He or she will go in first.

  • Be prepared for that.

  • If you're really bad, you'll go in quick; if you're not that bad, you will wait sometimes

  • for many hours.

  • Okay?

  • So this is the initial process.

  • Now, whether it's a hospital or clinic, it doesn't matter.

  • If you're bleeding, you're probably not going to the clinic; you're probably going to the

  • hospital.

  • They have more equipment, more staff.

  • If you have a lot of pain inside somewhere, but you can still walk, you can still think

  • clearly, you can just go to the clinic...

  • To the walk-in clinic, and ask to see the doctor there.

  • Okay?

  • Now, I'm going to give you a few expressions that are useful for you to know in case this

  • ever does come up.

  • Okay, so now I have a few expressions, here, that are useful for you to know; to keep in

  • mind.

  • Again, hopefully you don't need to use them.

  • But before you go travelling, make sure you're very aware of your own medical history.

  • Certain things should not be a surprise.

  • So, here, for example, I wrote: "I'm having an asthma attack."

  • If you have asthma and you're going travelling, make sure you know all the vocabulary associated

  • with asthma, because it's a realistic possibility for you to have an asthma attack.

  • Most of the things, here, are based on the idea that you're going into a hospital emergency

  • room unexpectedly; something surprising happened, and you need to be prepared.

  • If you have a medical history, make sure you know the vocabulary associated with that history.

  • Okay?

  • So, very simple...

  • This...

  • These are all very basic expressions just to get you...Get you going with a doctor,

  • basically.

  • "I have a sharp pain here.

  • I have a sharp pain here.

  • I have a blunt pain here".

  • "Blunt", it's not really painful, so that's why I didn't put it.

  • You have a pain or you have a sharp pain.

  • "Sharp pain" means like a knife or a needle went into you somewhere, and just point.

  • Or if it's inside...

  • If you think it's somewhere inside: "I have a pain in my stomach."

  • Okay.

  • Basically, as soon as it's a pain, it's not visible, then the treatment will, of course,

  • be very different; they have to find out what's causing that pain.

  • Okay?

  • If you're feeling a different...

  • A weak way...

  • "I feel dizzy".

  • "Dizzy" means, like, you feel like you're spinning-right?-and you might pass out anytime.

  • "I feel weak", like no energy, something's not right.

  • Again, this is probably something sudden and it's a little bit scary for you, and that's

  • why you went to the hospital.

  • "I feel nauseous".

  • I know it doesn't look like it, but it looks like...

  • It sounds like that: "noshus".

  • It means you feel like you're going to throw up.

  • Or you could just say: "I feel like throwing up"; vomit.

  • Okay?

  • Something inside is not good, and you...

  • Like that.

  • You know?

  • Hopefully not, though.

  • "I'm having an allergic reaction."

  • Now, some people don't even realize that they're allergic to something.

  • So, for example, you go to a seafood restaurant and you try something new that you've never

  • had before, but you're allergic to this.

  • Especially something like shellfish, scallops, oysters, things like that.

  • And you try one and suddenly your face blows up; it gets all swollen.

  • So, you've never had this before, you get very scared, you go to the hospital, and you

  • say: "Something's happening.

  • I'm having an allergic reaction."

  • They will probably give you a shot, like, anti-allergen, and it will hopefully help

  • you out, there.

  • "I see stars."

  • So, sometimes if something happens and you see, like, little white spots - if you just

  • say: "I see stars", they will understand what's going on; you're seeing the white spots in

  • your eyes.

  • Something's going on inside; maybe you're missing some certain nutrient, or maybe you're

  • just dehydrated.

  • Right?

  • That happens when you're dehydrated, so drink lots of water.

  • If it doesn't go away, get to the hospital.

  • "I have a cramp."

  • Now, a cramp is a little bit hard, but sometimes you feel like something is squeezing, like,

  • especially your stomach, it's squeezing really tight and it's really painful - that's called

  • a cramp.

  • You can also get it in your leg if you're sitting the wrong way; your muscles, they

  • squeeze together.

  • It becomes very painful.

  • Now, if you have a cramp inside somewhere and it's not going away, you should probably

  • get to the hospital; it could be something else.

  • If you have chest pains...

  • You have pain inside your chest-your heart, your lungs, whatever-definitely get to the

  • hospital.

  • Okay?

  • It could be something very serious.

  • "I think I broke something."

  • Now, doctors don't like when the patients tell them what the problem is, but at the

  • same time, if you think you broke something, then you're probably in a lot of pain and

  • that's probably what it is.

  • Either you think you broke a bone...

  • "I think I broke my leg, my arm", whatever.

  • "Sprained" means it's, like, almost broken, but not broken.

  • It basically means, like, you got a bruise inside and it's very painful, but...

  • And then the doctor will just set...

  • They will set your bones, put it in a cast.

  • So, like a thing to hold everything in a straight line and it doesn't move, and then that's

  • how they fix it.

  • "I'm bleeding from..."

  • If it's not very obvious where you're bleeding; you're bleeding somewhere else - you go in,

  • you tell the doctor: "I'm bleeding from this or that place", they take you inside, stop

  • the bleeding.

  • So, again, all of these are very basic expressions.

  • If you have reason to worry about something, be prepared.

  • If you say: "I'm having an asthma attack", you've probably had one before, otherwise

  • you don't know it's an asthma attack.

  • If you're having a seizure...

  • Like, some people have epilepsy, and like, their whole body starts shaking uncontrollably

  • - that's called a seizure.

  • Again, this shouldn't be a surprise for you, especially if you're going travelling.

  • Make sure you have the vocabulary you need to be able to get the treatment that you need.

  • So, I hope this was helpful.

  • I hope that you never, ever have to use any of these expressions or words in your whole

  • life, but better safe than sorry.

  • Right?

  • Better to be prepared than see an unexpected surprise that you're not prepared for.

  • If you have any questions on this, please go to www.engvid.com; you can ask me in the

  • forum.

  • You can also take the quiz and test your knowledge of this vocabulary.

  • I hope you like this lesson.

  • Please subscribe to my YouTube channel, and come visit me again soon; I'll have some more

  • helpful lessons for you.

  • Bye-bye.

Hi.

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