Language of nursing

By Emily Murray

 

Who would have thought the language of nursing would be so confusing and complicated! We all hear them speaking to each other and not understand a word they say because they are using all these different technical terms for things.

 

Nurses and other health care professions must use language understood easily by patients, they use a lot of phrasal verbs which is formed by words such as in, from, out, up to etc. phrasal verbs consist of two and maybe three parts but it's essential to consider the parts together, as the combination can make a whole different meaning. Some have several meanings. Have you ever been asked something and not understood properly? I defiantly have. Nurses have a different language when it comes to their job; words can mean different things to what they mean to us. For example 'come through something' means recovering from a serious illness, accident or survive. Where as to me that means coming through a tunnel or a hole etc.

 

Abbreviations are used daily in a nurses life, everything is shortened down for them, so they don't waste time writing down things about a patient. It can become confusing to some people as 'AAA' means 'abdominal aortic aneurysm' and if anyone saw that who wasn't a nurse would certainly not think of that being the abbreviation.

 

Nurses use a lot of interrogative words, which are the 5 W's, who, what, when, where and why. When I get asked questions I can feel much interrogated but every conversation you have with a nurse they will use at least one of these words to start their sentences; they do this because they need to find out everything about what is wrong with you and how it happened, etc. Language used by nurses is much clearer to them then they are to an ordinary person.

 

 

References:

Everyday English for international nurses

by Joy Parkinson & Chris Brooker