To ask after smb:
How is N. keeping?
How is N these days?
What’s wrong with N.?
What’s the trouble with N?
Where does it hurt?
What seems to be the matter?
To show sympathy:
I am sorry to hear that!
Oh, no! Poor old N.!
How upsetting / awful!
I know how it feels.
Give him my regards!
We wish you speedy recovery!
To give advice:
Why don’t you lie down?
Would you like an aspirin?
Would you like me to call the doctor?
Let me know if there is anything I can do.
Tell him to take things easy.
I hope he soon gets over it / feels better
Doctors
Doctor / physician/ medical man
General Practitioner (GP)
Surgeon
Optician
Paediatrician / children’s doctor
Gynaecologist / women’s doctor
Psychiatrist
Dentist
Midwife
Nurse
Pharmacist
Making an appointment with a doctor
To call a doctor
To make / fix / to ask for an appointment with smb
To have an appointment with smb
To keep an appointment Ant: To break / cancel / miss an appointment
To be by appointment only (Consultation is by appointment only)
Surgery hours are from 9 to 5.
To check one’s schedule
To be fully booked
To fit smb in
To consult / to see a doctor
To go for a check-up / to have a check-up
Annual check-up
To come at the appointed time
To arrive at the waiting-room
Surgery / Consulting-room
What do we do at the doctor’s?
To complain to smb of smth
To consult a doctor about
To breathe in, to breathe out (deeply)
To have one’s eyes examined
To have a blood test done
To have one’s eyesight tested
To have one’s chest X-rayed
To have one’s cardiogram taken
To have one’s tonsils removed
To have one’s height and weight measured
To malinger / to feign a sickness; To be a malingerer
To be diagnosed with
What do the doctors do?
To examine (carefully / thoroughly) / To give (a thorough / careful) examination; To examine for smth
To feel the pulse, To take the pulse
To sound the heart and lungs
To take the temperature,
To take smb’s blood pressure
To test smb’s eyesight
To diagnose an illness as smth
To make a (skilful, accurate) diagnosis
It sounds like … to me
By the sound of it, you caught a cold
Medications and their effects
A medicine for
To take medicines (pills, tablets)
A painkiller
Antibiotics
Vitamins
Half an aspirin
Eye drops, nose drops
To put in drops, to put drops into the nose
Cough mixture, lozenges
To rub ointment in / To rub ointment into the skin
To apply mustard plaster
To use herbal remedies /medicinal herbs
Vaccination, To vaccinate against smth
To ease / soothe / relieve / reduce / lessen a pain
To kill / deaden a pain
To reduce fever / to bring down the temperature
To reduce the swelling
To reduce the blood pressure
To relieve symptoms
To fight off infection
To prevent complications
To build up strength
To speed up the recovery
Procedures of curing
To grant (two-weeks’) sick-leave
To go on sick-leave
To be on sick-leave / on the sick-list
To be off work sick / To stay away from school
To keep to bed, to stay in bed / to have total bed rest Compare: To take to bed
To treat a person for a disease (with smth)
To cure a person of a disease, To cure an illness
A cure for a disease / A remedy for a disease
To put smb on treatment, To put smb on antibiotics
To follow the doctor’s instructions
Prescriptions
To prescribe some medicine (for smb) for an illness
To write out a prescription for smth
To prescribe a course of treatment, a course of injections
To take a teaspoonful 3 times a day after meals, last thing at night, before going to bed
To gargle with salt water
To follow the directions
Be careful not to exceed the prescribed dose
To avoid side-effects of the pill
At the chemist’s
The chemist’s / A drugstore
To take the prescription to the chemist’s
To have medicines on hand
Available on prescription
To have the prescription filled / made up at the chemist’s
To leave the prescription with the chemist
To come by for the prescription later
Recovering
The cut heals up / heals over
The swelling goes down
The pain goes away / wears off / eases off
To be out of pain
To be (well) on the road to recovery / on the way to recovery
To be on the mend
To recover from an illness
To recover after an operation
To get over / to overcome a disease
To make a recovery, To make a quick recovery, slow recovery, good recovery, total recovery
To burst with health
Dental problems
The tooth needs seeing to, stopping, pulling
The tooth is bothering me
The tooth keeps me awake
The pain skips around
To have a loose filling which is about to drop out / fall out
To have a sore gum
The tooth is sore to the touch
The tooth is sensitive to heat and cold
To have a cavity in the tooth and a (good deal of) decay around it
The decay has gone deeply into the tooth
The jaw swelled with toothache
To dread coming to see a dentist
To put off going to the dentist
To pluck up one’s courage
Dental equipment
Dentist’s chair
Electric drill
A syringe
A tongue depressor
A pair of forceps
A mirror on a long handle
Dental procedures
To open one’s mouth wide
To look over / to examine one’s teeth Compare: to see to the teeth
To give an injection of a painkiller (of Novocaine)
To feel a prick on the gum
To drill a tooth
To put in a filling / To fill in a cavity
To last / hold long (The filling will last long)
To save a tooth
To have one’s teeth cleaned
To have one’s tooth X-rayed
To have one’s tooth filled / stopped
To have one’s tooth pulled / extracted / taken out, To have a tooth out
Painful, Ant: painless extraction
Dentist’s advice
To take better care of one’s teeth
Not to put off going to the dentist
To have one’s teeth examined twice a year
To clean, to brush one’s teeth regularly
To use dental floss
To keep an eye on a diet
Be true to your teeth or your teeth will be false to you
To have sound teeth
Hospital terminology
An in-patient, Ant: an out-patient
A casualty
To call the ambulance
To take to hospital
To check in hospital Ant: to discharge from hospital
A case history
An interesting case
A (surgical) ward
Intensive therapy / Intensive care unit
To make rounds / To go one’s rounds