EMP English for Nursing and Health

2013-04-13T09:17:00.001+01:00

I have just checked in again on this, my first English for Nursing blog. I now write my blog on my websites English for Nursing and Healthcare and English for Healthcare Professionals.

In 2012 I was busy writing and self publishing books for doctors, nurses and nursing assistants on Lulu. The books are also available on Amazon.

English for Medical Purposes: Doctors
English for Medical Purposes: Healthcare Assistants
English for Medical Purposes: The Heart
English for Medical Purposes: The Lungs
English for Medical Purposes: Spelling and Vocabulary
English for Medical Purposes: Medication Calculation for Nurses
Medical English Activities
Medical English Resources: Health Issues
Teaching English for Medical Purposes

I have also been producing on-line courses for nurses on English360, including:
English for Healthcare Professionals
OET Writing for Nurses
English for Nurses Pre-Intermediate (Summer 2013)

Access to these courses is through my websites. Payment is made securely through Paypal. You can take the whole course or unit by unit.
I hope to see you all at my new blog site.

2012-07-01T23:02:00.003+01:00

The following article was written for my 'Author's Den' page after I had finished and published my latest EMP book, called English for Medical Purposes: Spelling and Vocabulary.

When reading and writing medical and nursing texts, Health Care Professionals require an understanding of medical and hospital terminology in the first instance. As well as this, Health Care Professionals need to be able to write fluently in patient notes, in referral letters and when completing care plans or care pathways. Finally, they need to be able to communicate information in writing about patient status and changes in patient condition.

Most course books for doctors or nurses concentrate on improving verbal and listening skills and often only touch on writing skills which are needed in the workplace. This is usually because the books are written from an ELT perspective which scorns the teaching of ‘content’. Of course, I’m not suggesting that English for nurses or doctors aims to equip students to pass a medical or nursing degree, however, I believe there is a need to help establish a glossary of hospital terms so that the workplace is less daunting when they finally make it!

The kind of writing which doctors and nurses undertake at work is different from the academic writing of essays which practitioners would have been familiar with as undergraduates. Much of the writing is formulaic. In the case of nurses; nurses complete care plans and care pathways which have a limited amount of prose writing and have a greater amount of tick boxing and short phrase writing instead. They read short phrases about patient care, for example ‘ Pt mobilising with/without mobility aid’ and initial when the milestone is achieved.

This is not to say that there is no writing of complete sentences and/or paragraphs. Variances in the patient’s ability to reach a goal or milestone is documented in the care pathway with an explanation. Referral letters to outside agencies for after care e.g after discharge home are written as mini reports.

There is an increasing need for nursing and medical graduates to publish papers and present at conferences so correct spelling especially of medical terms is essential. Medical or hospital language can be divided into:

· medical terminology

· medical and nursing jargon - used between colleagues

· everyday health terms – used in discussions with patients

· terms relating to equipment or procedures – collocations often used with these

By exploring groups of ‘headwords’ in medicine, larger glossaries can be developed which help students learn the immense corpora of medical terms they need to know to function at high levels of language. There are many compound words in Medicine particularly relating to new discoveries e.g stem cell research. By adding to a solid base of headwords, students gradually become aware of terms which ‘go together’. This is a mark of fluency and helps with comprehensibility. It also helps to reduce the number of completely new terms which need to be learned.

2012-05-22T13:45:00.000+01:00

Another blog post which had gone astray..Update on this post- I have just published a pdf e-book English for Medical Purposes: Doctors which I hope you will look at on Lulu

I realise that I have been remiss in the blog arena but I have been very busy with EMP matters. I have finally finished and published 'English for Medical Purposes:Doctors' which is about to be used by doctors in Brazil in a pilot programme in Belo Horizonte. There has been a lot of movement in language competency testing of overseas doctors and therefore a lot more interest in improving language skills either before working in the UK or soon after starting.

Doctors all around the world are keen to learn English for Medical Purposes for various reasons. They may want to improve their communication skills with patients and colleagues on the ward. They may need to speak English to patients in their own countries, e.g during events such as The World Cup or the Olympics. Some doctors want to improve their ability to present at English at medical conferences.

'English for Medical Purposes;Doctors' focusses on the communication skills doctors need to communicate with patients or colleagues. The contents of 'English for Medical Purposes:Doctors' are:

1 Introduction to the body
2 Introducing yourself
3 Starting with the patient interview
4 Talking to patients about the current complaint
5 Discussing vital signs
6 Examining a patient
7 Talking about pain level
8 Talking about tests
9 Discussing a diagnosis
10 Discussing surgery options
11 Wounds, infections and allergies
12 Discussing treatment

I have also started on Squidoo, a site which gives me the opportunity to showcase the books I have written and also write articles on various topics. It is interesting to see how people use a variety of online resources to make profitable or just plain interesting pages,called 'lenses'. Comparisons can be made before shopping for items on Amazon , and there are many lenses full of tips for teaching amongst other things.

2012-05-22T13:41:00.001+01:00

Previous post which had become 'lost in cyberspace'
Last Saturday, Ros Wright, Marie McCullagh and I completed the UK cities EMP Teacher Training Seminar taster sessions. The last venue was at the Bell International College,Cambridge. The venue was perfect - I almost wished I were a student myself! One of the interesting things for us as presenters has been the overview of the audience and their EMP teacher training needs. There has been a mixture of participants from language schools, post-grad and DELTA students, individual teachers currently teaching EMP or those about to launch into the new environment. We have had overseas participants also, from language schools and universities. Finally, participants from organisations as diverse as Cambridge ESOL to Language Lab.

The result... a clear idea that EMP training is a broad area and a fast-growing area especially as language competency testing is on the agenda. There is also a growing need for EMP training within overseas undergraduate courses - as more medical and nursing degrees are either delivered in English or have a compulsory English language strand within the degree.

Conference participation and academic journal writing is another growing EMP sub-group. Healthcare issues tend to be global issues. Participation at conferences requires a confident use of the language.

At the EMP Teacher Training sessions, we were keen to 'debunk' the mysteries of EMP teaching so that more teachers will have the confidence to enter this new area of ESP teaching. I view the growth of EMP as similar to the beginnings of English for Business Purposes. I was teaching General English at the time (late 90's /early 2000's) and remember hearing comments in the staff room about the 'new' Advanced Level courses we were offering. It was also at this time that I was asked to 'put together something' for the 'English for Nursing and Health' course which was being put in place. The fact that there were no materials which I could find which were appropriate was the impetus for writing my own and which eventually lead to the co-authoring of the 'Cambridge English for Nursing' books.

Whilst my background in nursing helps enormously in writing the EMP materials I am currently producing, I firmly believe that a background in healthcare is not essential to be able to teach EMP. Ros, Marie and I were at pains to reiterate that teaching any speciality ESP course is not about teaching content in the main. Of course, there is a certain amount of technical vocabulary involved but it must always be remembered that, in the most part, students have this background knowledge. You, the EMP teacher, are not teaching students to become nurses or doctors or physios etc. You are teaching communication skills within a healthcare context. Fortunately, there are numerous online resources and books which will assist you to develop a working knowledge of healthcare matters. The beauty is that the online resources can also be used by students to produce the resources themselves as a reinforcement exercise.

I have just received the first copy of my latest self-published book 'English for Medical Purposes: Doctors' which I hope will be of use to those of you teaching English for Medicine. I have also published a second edition of 'English for Medical Purposes: The Heart' in an A4 format. I would like to offer 3 free copies of each book to the first person to contact me in return for a review of the books. The reviews will be added to the website with the clear disclosure of the receipt of a free book in return for the review.

Nursing in the UK versus Australia: some thoughts

2012-03-19T10:16:00.000+00:00

I'm about to hop on a plane to make the long journey to Australia to see family and friends and, most importantly, to attend the 30 year reunion of my training group at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. We celebrated the beginning of our training (1979) and now we meet again to celebrate the end of our training (1982). Many of the group now have admin, teaching or research roles in Australia and beyond so it will be a great opportunity to compare notes.

Nursing in the UK appears to be experiencing the same aches and pains as we had in Australia when nursing education changed to a degree course. The same old chestnuts are being trotted out here in the UK about the inability of university-educated nurses to fluff pillows and respond to patient needs. I must say that I fell into this trap myself as I had been away from clinical nursing for some time and returned to find wards staffed by young, university-educated nurses. It took a day to change my opinion after watching these nurses negotiate lab results, complex nursing procedures and nursing informatics. At the same time, they responded to patient needs with added skill as they were able to assess the reasons for difficult patient behaviours in a way that we were unable to. They had been trained in critical thinking. We had been trained to complete tasks.

I tried to remember the sort of paperwork we completed when I started out in my training. I recall the patient record, of course but not much else. I seem to remember a communications book in some wards where messages were left. Probably about bowel movements! Most of the time,however, there was a lot of 'Does anyone know anything about Mr Smith's dressing?' or 'Does anyone know if Mr Smith has been for an X-ray or not?'.

We learned about the new 'Nursing Process' from America - assess,plan,implement,evaluate- and were a bit skeptical about it. After all, where do you keep the record of it? This is precisely why nurses have a lot of paperwork these days. It's important to record what has happened and if it is successful or not. The difficulty is in establishing a paperwork regime which is balanced and not recording every move the patient makes or doesn't make.

Recording patient information is an important part of nursing not least as a means to assess staff levels and the skill mix required on the ward each shift. It's also important as a means of assessing the effectiveness or otherwise of some of the treatments used e.g. dressings. Some of these treatments are expensive and need to be replaced if they are not doing the job. How will we know if we don't keep records for nursing research.

Nursing Research is a vital part of nursing and will only be taken seriously if done in a proper manner following academic procedure. This is another reason for insisting on nursing education levels which match the levels of other Health care Professionals. Nurses are told that they are at the coalface of healthcare yet denied the same status as other HCPs if they are not educated to the same level.

This brings me to my last point; that of the education of Aged Care Workers. I cannot help but compare the UK situation with that of Australia. In Australia, prospective workers undertake a 12 month Aged Care Certificate III where they learn about the specific needs of the elderly. They learn the skills needed to work with the elderly and their competency in undertaking these skills is assessed before they set forth in their new jobs. It is extremely worrying to see the situation in the UK which reminds me of how it was in Australia many years ago. Untrained or barely trained Aged Care Workers try to care for the elderly without the knowledge they require to understand the special needs of the elderly, particularly those with dementia. I recently worked in a large NHS hospital which is like any other in the country. Medical wards full of the 'very elderly', patients in their 90s with even more needs than the 'elderly'. This area of care is huge and growing rapidly but we are not training health workers adequately to deal with the challenges they'll face there. We are also not paying them a living wage to do so. But that's another blog..

Presentation at the Teacher Training in EMP seminars

2012-03-02T09:08:00.000+00:00

The presentation I gave in Oxford last month on changing issues in teaching EMP.http://www.slideshare.net/virginiaallum2010/teacher-training-in-emp

"Recruiting for values and then training for skills is enormously important."

2012-02-29T10:21:00.000+00:00

I went up to London last week to attend an information session on the recently formed Nursing and Care Quality Forum, chaired by Sally Brearley. http://cno.dh.gov.uk/2012/01/31/nursing-and-care-quality-forum/ .The suggestion was made that the recruitment of student nurses should include an assessment of the student nurse's ability to be caring and have 'the right sort of values'. In an article today on BBC Health http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17195679 mention was made that 'dignity was "the essence of proper nursing"'. Whilst I believe this to be true, it is almost one of those sayings which 'goes without saying'.

This morning, I also listened to the Today programme on BBC4 where the issue of care of the elderly in our hospitals was discussed. There seems to be a lack of appreciation of the difficulties faced by nurses and HCAs to provide compassionate care to a ward which is often full of predominantly elderly and very elderly patients and the lack of safe staffing levels which will allow this to happen.

I have recently nursed in wards which are a mix of six-bed bays and side rooms (for isolation) where most of the patients are not in their 80s,they are in their 90s. This is another phenomenon which is not being discussed. The very elderly are often very frail and frequently have an overlay of dementia.

Measures like Intentional Rounding (the deliberate visiting of a patient every hour or two hours to check on their needs) were introduced to ensure that good nursing care is provided. However, with the best will in the world. this can only happen if staffing levels are maintained at a safe level.

Many nurses and HCAs work long shifts; 13 and 1/2 hour shifts are not uncommon. I have worked with nurses on these shifts who say things like 'well, no break for me this afternoon!' or 'I think I went to the toilet at 9 am this morning' (said at 8pm).

These factors will not change in the future;in fact they will get worse. The elderly continue to live longer, there are fewer intact families to provide the additional care (support at home, visiting in hospital) and staff levels are difficult to maintain as more and more nurses and HCAs decide they can earn more for less work in almost any other job. The fact that many remain is a testament to their caring natures.

The NHS and private hospitals will have to continue to draw on overseas nurses to fill the void. At the recent Nursing and Care Quality Forum session, I asked what focus there would be on language skills testing of all nurses who come into the country to work and language support for those nurses who struggle with English for Medical Purposes. This need appeared to be a focus which had not been thought of or indeed known much about.

I spoke on Teacher Training in EMP last Saturday at the Oxford International Study Centre, Oxford and before that at the Wimbledon School of English . It was heartening to see the beginnings of a groundswell in the awareness of English for Medical Purposes as a specialty course which overseas doctors and nurses ,and other heathcare professionals,need to undertake to ensure safe practice and an understanding of the UK hospital culture.

During the radio programme today I heard the word 'communication' and related expressions several times: talking to the elderly in a way which shows dignity, spending a few minutes to chat to the elderly to understand their needs for the day, effective communication and so on.

It gets back to the heart of nursing. I am about to return to Australia for a reunion of my nursing group, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney 1979-1982. We are celebrating the anniversary of the end of our training as we celebrated the anniversary of the start of our training in 2009. We were taught how to care, that's true, but it was in a different environment. The Baby Boomers still staffed the wards, technology was minimal compared to today and paperwork? I think I remember a communication book and the patient record.

I firmly believe that a certain amount of paperwork is essential to ensure checks and balances. As nursing in the UK moves towards a degree course in 2013 there will be changes,changes which I see as essential for nursing in the UK to join the ranks of other countries which see nursing as a legitimate profession standing at the same level as other healthcare professionals.

Having a caring nature or the willingness to show compassion is only one aspect of good nursing care. Registered Nurses need to be able to nurse their patients as a whole; managing physical, emotional,spiritual and cultural needs. Healthcare Assistants need and often receive, training in basic nursing care and training in the observation of risk factors. There is,however, a need to standardise the training and ensure that competency assessment is undertaken before HCAs commence their work on the ward. The current practice of allowing HCAs to start work and then 'train' ,sometimes by distance education, is not optimal.

Similarly, the training of carers ,or lack of it, in the Aged Care sector is a scandal and makes me think of the situation I remembered in Australia in the 1970's and 1980's. In Australia today, any Carer (called Personal Care Assistant) must undertake a 12 month Aged Care Certificate III and be signed off as competent before starting employment in any Aged Care Facility, private or government run. This acts as a safeguard for the elderly and also a sifting of unsuitable workers. Aged Care is a complex area especially dementia care and requires skills in communication and awareness of the changing physical needs of the elderly. As in the UK, the Australian Aged Care sector is made up of a large number of overseas workers who need language support to be able to deal with the complex communication scenarios they will encounter.

Recruiting for values is important but offering future nurses the environment where they can care for their patients in a caring way is just as important. If we cannot offer student nurses the vision of a career path in nursing where they can invisage making a difference to the lives of their patients, who will we attract to the profession?

Infermiers magazine

2012-02-27T14:19:00.000+00:00

First article published in the French Infermiers.com magazine. http://www.infirmiers.com/etudiants-en-ifsi/cours/anglais-medical-tout-sur-les-signes-vitaux.html . I will be contributing an article every quarter to the magazine so please have a look. Bonus point to the first person who discovers my spelling mistake in the article!

English for Medical Purposes: Health Care Assistants

2012-02-14T12:34:00.002+00:00

Blog hit 100 views yesterday!

2012-02-14T12:31:00.000+00:00

I wonder if fellow bloggers have targets for readership of their blogs? My target has been 100 a day which I managed for the first time yesterday. Thank you to all viewers of the blog. I'll have to set a new target of 200 now.

Writing posts on blogs is very good practice for EMP students so dust off the keyboard and send in a post or start a thread. I would love to hear from more of you.

'Pills and booze' : A lesson plan?

2012-02-12T09:53:00.001+00:00

Waking up to the news of another singing talent wasted through drug and alcohol abuse I wondered, with my teaching hat on, how the news of Whitney Houston's death could become a lesson for EMP students. Students coming to a class after hearing of disasters or sudden deaths are understandably distressed and unable to concentrate on the planned lesson. So it's wise to have an 'emergency lesson' up your sleeve.

Drug and alcohol issues are a significant part of healthcare in all countries, in one form or another. Potential discussions are:
What is the drug of choice in your country?
Is alcohol abuse a problem in your country?
What programmes are in place to deal with D&A abuse?

Vocabulary revision incluses phrases such as:
D&A (drug and alcohol)
illicit or illegal drugs
recreational drugs
party drugs
binge drinking
excessive drinking
attend rehab
group therapy
to dry out
to go 'cold turkey'

It's a good opportunity to practise communication frameworks such as:
giving an opinion (e.g on treatment choices for drug addicts)
speaking at a team meeting (e.g to decide options for a patient with chronic alcoholism)

Supporting students in their ability to speak at a Team Meeting is very important as this can be daunting. The Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT - a variety of healthcare professionals who are looking after a particular patient) will meet to discuss particularly difficult cases which require the input of several workers. During the meeting, there is a need to:
summarise the patient's past history
describe current status
describe the home situation
give opinions on the patient's ability to cope at home

Practising Team Meetings can be done effectively using role play after giving each group a scenario (case file) to work with. With more able students, time can be given to prepare the role play so that students can research authentic materials such as information about rehab places and medication information.

It's also a good idea to have a think about the structure of groups and issues such as 'turn taking'. Activities where students identify themselves with a particular Team Member personality can be quite a lot of fun. For example, activities which present a series of animals which students identify with and then explain why. For example; 'I chose the lion because I like to be the centre of attention in a team meeting' etc.

Encourage students to develop a glossary of the terms which they use during their Team Meeting and encourage them to put them in context (in a sentence). The way this can be done can be seen on a website called Vocab Trainer. By putting the terms in context, they become more meaningful. The glossaries can be used as a basis for worksheets which are easily produced using resources on websites such as Tools for English.com

Finally, help students develop strategies to manage their involvement in team meetings. For example, how to ask for clarification, how to ask speakers to slow down, how to alert other team members that you are very nervous!

Do students still want grammar practice in ESP?

2012-02-11T15:13:00.000+00:00

When writing 'English for Medical Purposes: Health Care Assistants' I decided to include short sections on grammar review because I have had feedback and requests from students and teachers from a variety of countries. I've included an exercise from the book as an example of a section which revised phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs are very useful when talking to patients in everyday language. Using phrasal verbs tends to make the conversation a little more casual and can help put patients at ease. The more formal terms will be used when writing patient notes or writing a referral e.g a referral when a patient is transferred to a smaller hospital or a nursing home.

I always advise students to add phrasal verb + formal term to their study note books along with medical terms. It's also a good idea to add a sentence to put the phrasal verb in context.

When teaching phrasal verbs, it's a good idea to remember to teach how to construct a question or statement using a phrasal verb and pronoun as this can be quite difficult e.g You need to bring it (it= the specimen) back with you tomorrow.

'Review the following

to excise a tumour = to (surgically) cut out a tumour

to undervalue an opinion = to make light of an opinion

to repeat a procedure = to do a procedure again

to notify the doctor about the patient’s condition = to tell the doctor about the patient’s condition

Ex 17: Complete sentences or questions by selecting the correct term. Cross out the incorrect term. Note: phrasal verbs tend to be informal

1. I’m going to remove / take off Mrs Smith’s dressing. (formal)

2. The blood test will have to be done again / repeated tomorrow. (formal)

3. She hasn’t vomited / brought up her lunch today which is good. (informal)

4. Apply / put on a new dressing in two days.(formal)

5. After you insert the catheter, make sure you inflate / blow up the balloon using 10 mls of water. (informal) '

Excerpt from English for Medical Purposes: Health Care Assistants

2012-02-10T12:17:00.000+00:00

This is an example of the sort of activities which are in 'English for Medical Purposes: Health Care Assistants' . How did you go?

Activities of daily living

· Maintaining a Safe Environment

· Communication

· Breathing

· Eating and Drinking

· Elimination

· Washing and Dressing

· Thermoregulation

· Mobilisation

· Work and Play

· Expressing Sexuality

· Sleeping

· Death and Dying

Ex 6: Answer the following questions using information from the text above and words in the box below

pass urine maintain mobility aids

self care trip over

1. ADLs are described as the types of activities which most people do every day for _______________________.

2. Maintaining a safe environment means to ensure that there are no objects which a person can _________________.

3. Elimination refers to toileting, that is, the ability to ____________________ and have a bowel movement with or without the assistance of aids such as catheters.

4. Thermoregulation is the ability to ______________ normal body temperature to avoid fluid loss or discomfort.

5. Mobilisation covers all areas of movement either by walking or using ____________ such as walking frames or wheelchairs.

EMP: Health Care Assistants is out!

2012-02-10T02:05:00.000+00:00

What about language support for Nursing Assistants?

2012-02-09T09:41:00.001+00:00

I was working on a ward the other day with some terrific Health Care Assistants and Nursing Assistants, as they are called in the UK. Health Care Assistants are support workers who have undertaken a competency-based programme (similar to the CNA in the US) while Nursing Assistants have not. Whilst HCAs and NAs are not classed as nurses in the UK, they still perform what I classify as 'nursing activities'. They take patient observations and do blood glucose testing and urine testing. If they complete specialised training they are able to perform higher level activities such as venepuncture and performing ECGs.

Nursing Assistants also work in Care Homes or in the homes of the elderly where they are generally referred to as 'carers'. In the UK, as in many other English-speaking countries, there are large numbers of overseas workers who work as carers and nursing assistants. At times, communication in the workplace is difficult as carers often look after the elderly who may be hard of hearing or suffer from dementia.

HCAs who work in hospitals work under the direct supervision of an RN. This means that any changes in patient condition, for instance abnormal vital signs, must be reported immediately to the RN on duty. RNs may also ask HCAs to perform a patient activity and then report the results. For example, 'Can you take Mr Smith's BP and let me know what it's doing?'.

I felt that there was a need for an EMP book aimed at the HCA / Certified Nursing Assistant as this group is an ever-growing group which are relied on to provide nursing care in our hospitals, despite the label of 'support worker'. Training is often 'on-the-job' with little time to revise the language used during the activities.

I have almost completed the next self-published 'English for Medical Purposes: Health Care Assistants' and look forward to feedback from followers of my blog. I would love to hear from teaching and nursing colleagues. Any thoughts about language support for this group of healthcare workers?

English for Medical Purposes :The Heart 2nd ed

2012-02-04T10:35:00.002+00:00

Second edition of English for Medical Purposes: The Heart

2012-02-04T09:25:00.000+00:00

I am continuing to learn about self publishing and marketing to a wider audience. I revised the first edition of 'English for Medical Purposes: The Heart' . The second edition will soon be available on lulu and also on amazon. The aim of the books in this series is to provide more authentic content and some grammar and spelling tips than is possible in strictly communication focussed books. The content is in the form of medical terminology and vocabulary used in charts and documents.

I still work as a Registered Nurse in NHS hospitals in the SW of England and try to keep my eye out for any hospital documents which may cause difficulties to overseas nurses. If charts can be reviewed before nurses come across them at work, there is a greater chance that overseas nurses will be more confident in their use.

The aspect of content in EMP courses is always a difficult issue as EMP courses must ensure that they are not trying to teach nursing or medical skills but instead teach the language skills needed to perform them. Having said that, there is always a chunk of vocab which is specific to each nursing or medical activity and which needs to be understood before the basic communication skill can be effective.

Face-to-face time in the class-room is best spent practising communication skills with time spent learning vocab and medical terms out of the class-room. This is because a part of learning medical terminology and healthcare vocab is memorising which needs to be 'little and often'.

I am continuing the series with 'English for Medical Purposes: The Lungs' and also 'English for Nursing Assistants' . But, for now, please keep your eye out for the second edition of 'English for Medical Purposes: The Heart'. Feedback very welcome!

First of the EMP booklets

2012-01-26T22:34:00.001+00:00

The first EMP Teacher Training seminar was a great success

2012-01-25T09:06:00.001+00:00

The first of the EMP seminars was held at the Wimbledon School of English www.wimbledon-school.ac.uk/ last Saturday. Many thanks again to the staff at WSE- what a great venue! If I were a student I would be very happy there, I'm sure. A lovely garden available at the rear of the building and in full view of the sitting area. Beautiful and clean class-rooms so we were spoiled.

Ros Wright, Marie McCullagh ('Good Practice') and I ('Cambridge English for Nursing') spoke on different aspects of EMP teaching. Cleve Miller (English360) spoke on using blended learning in the classroom. I was also able to give a brief overview of Vocab Trainer (www.ck-translations.eu/) during my presentation.

The focus of my presentation, 'Putting Communication First in Medical English' is the world of the overseas nurse coming to work in the UK. What are the challenges linguistically? And, more importantly... what the forthcoming language testing changes will mean for overseas doctors and nurses (that is, both EU and non-EU doctors and nurses). I believe that EMP teaching will expand a lot in the next year and so it's wise for teachers and language schools to prepare for the changes.

A few important points came out of the presentations:
1. EMP communications have a safety aspect to them - accurate communication is essential for safe practice.

2. Teachers need to remember that they are not teaching content -their students will be trained in their field already. Teachers can make use of students' expertise through 'Share Your Knowledge' sessions.

3. Teachers have a background in teaching functional language already, it's just a matter of putting the communications in context. So, 'asking for information' is put in the context of 'Pre-assessing a patient' or 'Admitting a patient' or 'Patient Interview'

4. Role plays should be part of the core of the sessions as many of the communication examples require rehearsal to ensure confidence. For example, developing confidence in performing handovers or taking messages over the phone.

5. There are many online resources which help to develop an understanding of medical terminology.

The next FREE seminar will be held on 25 Feb at the Oxford English Centre www.oxfordenglish.co.uk/ . Please see registration details on this website under 'Courses'. Hope to see you there!

As an addendum- I have just finished my first book(let), ' English for Medical Purposes:the heart' which is available on my website http://www.e4nursingandhealthcare.com/buy-books.html. Activities include practice in medical terms and also a communication focus on a related nursing procedure or activity.

Teacher Training seminars starting in Wimbledon January 21

2012-01-12T22:44:00.000+00:00

Please go to my website and listen to the video about aspects of teacher training for English for Nurses
http://www.e4nursingandhealthcare.com/online-courses--workshops--online-journal-articles.html

Make your own activities using 'Tools for English'

2012-01-04T17:51:00.000+00:00

Try the 'Tools for English site www.toolsforenglish.com/ to make some quick activities as revision for your students. I made a gap fill and a jumbled word activity using part of a BBC Health article on alcohol and hypothermia. The gap fill activity automatically removes the 3rd, 7th or 12th word depending on level of difficulty. So, be aware of the layout of the article so the 7th word isn't 'a' or 'the'.

Here is the example of the activities I generated.

And then the answer sheet is easily generated.

If you like, a jumbled word activity can be made. This can be a timed activity - first one to untangle the words wins! Make sure to ask students to find the word which hasn't been jumbled.

(answer: coma)

tagxedo

2012-01-02T23:58:00.000+00:00

I must say thank you to William Burton for showing me this website www.tagxedo.com . Make up some word shapes on a theme..or better yet, get students to gather all the terms for a particular health topic and make their own tagxedo shape. Then, swap the shapes and see how many of your partner's terms you can find.
How many heart terms can you find in my heart?

Happy New Year - be kind to your liver

2012-01-01T13:24:00.000+00:00

During my Christmas blog I talked about excess. I came across an article today which talks about the opposite i.e dealing with excess. 'Detoxing in January is futile, says liver charity’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16354472
It‟s very handy article for students to read and find terms for the management of excess. It can also be used as a basis for patient education techniques. Patient education plays a big part in discharge planning as patients who have medications or post-op dressings explained do better when they return home.

I would use the article to:

1. Look at the expressions used to talk about cleansing, reducing intake and avoiding. These are the opposite of the expressions we looked at in a previous blog; "overdoing", "overconsumption" and "excessive"

2. Write a dialogue between a doctor or nurse giving advice to a patient before discharge on the best way to manage their health options.

3. Ask students to think of other health areas where these expressions could be used e.g diabetes, renal, cardiac, respiratory, gastro (IBS)

More able students could add the reasons for selecting a particular option. It could also be used as a practice of expressions using "if + conditional" e.g If you avoid alcohol once or twice a week, it will be better for your liver.

The expressions which are useful in talking about managing options:

It's better to...

It would be better to (do something) than to (do something else)

(add noun or gerund e.g Detoxing, Reducing your intake, Cutting down, Abstinence, Taking a break) is the best option

Expressions for giving reasons

(Something) is better than (something) because....

(Something) is a better option to take as ....

The article discusses options for improving liver health. The expressions can be divided into three subheadings. Ask students to place the expressions under the three headings:

1. Cleansing or detoxing

2. Reducing intake or taking a temporary break

3. Avoiding or abstinence

You can make a cloze of the expressions using the cloze generator on Hotpotatoes

Here are the expressions:

1. Cleansing or detoxing

to detox

to go on a detox for + (time) e.g to go on a detox for one month

to cleanse something of excess e.g to cleanse the liver of excess

detoxing = the process of removing toxins from the body

a one-hit attempt to do something = a quick fix : doing one thing in the hope of rectifying a problem

2. Reducing intake or taking a temporary break

to take a break from something e.g alcohol

to take a few days off something e.g take a few days off alcohol

to keep your intake of something down = to stay on a reduced intake of something

to cut down on something = to reduce the amount of something

3. Avoiding or abstinence

to give up + noun e.g give up alcohol

to stay off + noun e.g to stay off alcohol

abstinence (uncountable noun) a period of abstinence

to remain abstinent

Detoxing in January is futile, says liver charity

Taking a

regular weekly break from alcohol is preferable to a short, sharp detox

Giving up alcohol or going on a detox for one month is pointless, especially after the excesses of the festive season, says a liver charity.

Instead, the British Liver Trust says drinkers should make a decision to stay off alcohol for a few days every week throughout the whole year. Experts agree that a short period of complete abstinence will not improve liver health. A longer-term attitude to alcohol is more desirable, the charity said.

Andrew Langford, chief executive of the British Liver Trust, said that people tend to believe the hype about rejuvenating their liver by detoxing in January.

"People think they're virtuous with their health by embarking on a liver detox each January with the belief that they are cleansing their liver of excess following the festive break.

"Detoxing can lead to a false sense of security and feeds the idea that you can abuse your liver as much as you like." Dr Mark Wright Southampton General Hospital

"A one-hit, one-month attempt to achieve long-term liver health is not the way to approach it.

"You're better off making a resolution to take a few days off alcohol a week throughout the entire year than remaining abstinent for January only."

The thinking behind this approach is that total alcohol intake per person is kept down and the liver is given time to recover each week. Providing the liver has no lasting damage, it can repair itself very quickly, taking as little as 24 hours to go back to normal.

Dr Mark Wright, consultant hepatologist at Southampton General Hospital, said detoxing created its own problems.

"Detoxing for just a month in January is medically futile. It can lead to a false sense of security and feeds the idea that you can abuse your liver as much as you like and then sort everything else with a quick fix.

"It makes about as much sense as maxing out your credit cards and overdraft all year, then thinking you can fix it by just eating toast in January. The figures just don't stack up," said Dr Wright.

The British Liver Trust is launching a campaign called 'Love Your Liver' to encourage people to maintain a healthy liver. As part of the campaign, it also advises eating well and exercising regularly.

"If you are overweight you increase your risk of liver disease by three times if you drink alcohol too.

"Cutting down on your daily food indulgences and not overloading on sugary drinks will all help to optimise your liver function," the Trust's website says.

Teacher training programme information

2011-12-26T11:38:00.002+00:00

registration to Teacher Training seminars

2011-12-26T11:37:00.002+00:00