UNIT 6 MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS 2 (PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH IN USE MEDICINE)

PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH IN USE MEDICINE

UNIT 6 MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS 2

A.       Hospital staff

The people who work in any type of workplace, including hospitals, are called the staff. The medical staff in a British hospital belong to one of four main groups:

1	A pre-registration house officer (PRHO), or house officer, is a newly graduated doctor in the first year of postgraduate training. After a year, he or she becomes a registered medical practitioner. In the current system of training, the foundation programme, the name for these doctors is Foundation Year 1 doctor (FY1).
2	A senior house officer (SHO) is in the second year of postgraduate training. The title is now Foundation Year 2 (FY2), but the old terms senior house officer and SHO are still used.
3	A specialist registrar (SpR) is a doctor has completed the Foundation programme, and is training in one of the medical specialties. There are also some non-training registrars- doctors who have completed their training but do not wish to specialize yet.
4	A consultant is a fully qualified specialist. There may also be some associate specialists – senior doctors who do not wish to become consultants. In addition, there is at least one medical (or clinical) director, who is responsible for all of the medical staff.

B.        Medical teams

Consultant physicians and surgeons are responsible for a specific number of patients in the hospital. Each consultant has a team of junior doctors to help care for those patients. In many hospitals, there are multidisciplinary teams which consist not only of doctors but also physiotherapists and other allied health professionals.

When patients enter – or are admitted to – hospital, they are usually seen first by one of the junior doctors on the ward where they will receive treatment and care. The junior doctors clerks them – take their medical history – and examines them. Some time later, the registrar also sees the patients, and may order investigations or tests, for example X-rays or an ECG, make a professional diagnosis, and begin treatment. The consultant usually sees the new admissions – people have recently been admitted to the ward – for the first time on one of the regular ward rounds, when the management of the patients is discussed with the registrar. Consultants also decide when a patient is ready to be discharged (sent home). On the ward round, the consultant is accompanied by the team ad a nurse, and they visit all the patients in the consultant’s care.

C.       Shifts

Junior doctors now normally work in shifts, which means they normally work for eight hours every day, for example 7 am to 3 pm, and are then free until 7 am the next day. After a week they change to a different shift, for example 3 pm to 11 pm or 11 pm to 7 am. The alternative system is to work from 9 am to 5 pm every day and to take turns to be on call – available to return to the hospital if necessary – from 5pm to 9 am the next day. Days on call are set out in a rota, or list of names and times. Doctors on call carry a radio pager, or bleeper, a device which makes a noise when someone is trying to contact them.

EXERCISES

6.1.         Make word combinations using a word from each box. Look at A, B and C opposite to help you.

associate house on provisional radio ward

call diagnosis officer pager round specialist

6.2         Match the description (1-5) with the job titles 9a-e). look at A and B opposite to help you.

1	Dr Graham has been a paediatrician for eight years and is responsible for treating the children admitted to ward 60.	a	special registrar
2	Dr Stewart had just started the second year of her Foundation Programme.	b	medical director
3	Dr Singh has just started his training as a surgeon.	c	consultant
4	Dr Philips has just graduated and is working in a large hospital in Birmingham.	d	SHO
5	Dr Millar is in charge of the medical staff in the Birmingham hospital.	e	PRHO or house officer.

6.3          Are the following statements true or false? Find reasons for your answers in A, B and C opposite.

1	A medical graduate becomes registered two years after graduation.
2	The system of training doctors in Britain is called the Foundation Programme.
3	The name senior house officer is no longer used in Britain.
4	The consultant is usually the first doctor to see new patients.
5	When working in shifts, all doctors take turns to be on call.

6.4`        Complete the text of a PRHO describing her job. Look at A, B and C opposite to help you.

When I get to the ward, the first thing I do is talk to the house officer who was on duty during the last 1 __________, to find out if there have been any new 2 __________. Then I generally see the change nurse. He tells me if there is anything that needs to be done urgently, such as intravenous lines to put up or take down. Later in the morning I 3 __________ any new patients, which basically involves taking a history. On Tuesday and Friday morning the consultant does her ward 4 __________, and I have to make sure I’m completely up to date on her patients. After that, there are usually lots of things to do, like writing up request forms for blood 5 __________, and so on. In the afternoon, I have to prepare for any patients who are to be  6__________ the next day. They’re usually happy to be going home! And then of course there are the lectures and tutorials in the 7__________ programme on Monday and Wednesday.

ANSWER KEY