Everyday medical English

Why eyes water
While hay is perhaps the most common cause, watery eyes can be caused by almost anything. The sun glare can be painful and the eye responds by producing tears from the lacrimal glands. Extreme cold may sting the very sensitive membrane at the front of the eye, the cornea, and have the same effect. In fact, any irritation of the membrane, or the one lining the white of the eye and the inside of the lids, will bring tears. Extreme emotion, cutting an onion, sensitivity to make-up, a high wind, sudden pain in the body, all can cause watery eyes. So, of course, can an eye or lid infection, because these inflame the tiny duct at the nose end of the bottom lid where the tears drain through into your nose. This duct may occasionally get plugged by, for example, a detached eyelash, and will need syringing out. But, it is far more likely that running eyes are due to an allergy. Finally, gritty, sore and watery eyes can be due to city pollution. Treatment for what the doctors call “the urban eye” is just – a weekend in the country!
How should eye drops be dispensed
Remember that any eye drops should be discarded immediately after a course of treatment. If infection has been diagnosed, make sure that the dropper never touches either the eye or anything other than a sterile inside of the bottle in which it is dispensed.
In hospitals, eye treatments are usually dispensed in single eye doses in case of cross infection.
Bathing the eyes with sterile sodium chloride (common salt) eye lotion to clear a foreign body or debris from an infection is best carried out by a trained nurse or doctor.

Vocabulary
Respond – reagovati
Get plugged – začepiti se
Syringe out – ispirati špricem
Bath the eye – isprati oko
Carry out – izvesti, izvršiti
Dispense treatment – vršiti tretman
By means of – pomoću
Course of treatment – tok lečenja
Debris – otpadne materije

SOURCE: AN ENGLISH READER MEDICINE, Sunita Bujas & Vesna Margan, Školska knjiga 2000.


Giving an injection
Anna, a second year student nurse is facing her second assessment in practical work. Today her proficiency in giving hypodermic injections will be assessed.
Ward sister: Is your tray ready, Anna?
Anna: Oh, I think so, let me check once more – yes, the syringe, two needles, the file, swabs, receiver and ampoule.
Ward sister: You’d better put a forceps on the tray and an extra syringe.
Anna: But this is a ready-to-use syringe with the needle attached. It came in a sterile pack right from the Central sterile supply unit.
Ward sister: So I see, but then I’ve seen the piston stuck many times and you wouldn’t want it to happen to you on such an important occasion, would you?
Now I want you to tell me how you’re going to proceed step by step.
Anna: First I am going to open the ampoule with a file and draw the right dose and then I’ll check the cylinder for air, clean the injection site, pinch the skin and pierce with the needle in an upward direction. Then I’ll make sure that the needle has not entered a blood vessel.
Ward sister: And how will you check that last item?
Anna: Oh, by pulling the piston back a little. The needle is then withdrawn and the injection site swabbed.

Vocabulary
Assessment – provera znanja
Proficiency – veština
Hypodermic – potkožan
Piston - klip šprica
File - pilica
Swab – tufer vate, vata na štapiću
Receiver – posuda za upotrebljeni materijal
Ampoule – ampula

SOURCE: Adapted from “Nursing” by Donald Dallas, Collier – Macmillan Ltd., London, 1971. / AN ENGLISH READER MEDICINE, Sunita Bujas & Vesna Margan, Školska knjiga 2000.

Blood pressure
Almost everyone agrees that blood pressure readings should be taken regularly, that high blood pressure is dangerous and must be lowered to normal values.
Blood pressure testing – the act of having the cuff placed on the arm and inflated – makes people anxious, and this alone may elevate the reading above what it would normally be. In order to minimize this fear, leave the cuff on for a while before inflating it.
This permits the patient to become accustomed to it. Then pump up the cuff around the arm, compressing the artery beneath it. When you listen with the stethoscope over the artery in the angle between the arm and the forearm, you hear no sound because there is no blood flowing through due to the inflated cuff. Then slowly release the air in the cuff, decompressing the underlying artery and allowing blood to flow through it once more. The point at which you first hear pulse or beat coming through is called the systolic blood pressure. As the air continues to leave the cuff, the point at which the pulse is no longer heard is called the diastolic pressure.
Blood pressure is expressed as the systolic pressure (the top figure) over the diastolic pressure (or lower number). A typical blood pressure reading is 130 (systolic) over 80 (diastolic) and is written 130/80 mm Hg. Mm Hg simply means the height in milimetres to which the pressure in the cuff will raise the mercury column.

Vocabulary
Blood pressure reading – očitavanje krvnog pritiska
Elevate – podići, povisiti
Inflate – naduvati, napumpati
Mercury- živa
Mercury column – stubac žive
SOURCE: AN ENGLISH READER MEDICINE, Sunita Bujas & Vesna Margan, Školska knjiga 2000.

Emergency childbirth
The nurse is often anxious in case her assistance should be sought when a woman suddenly delivers in a public place or in a nearby home. There is little she need do, but an air of calm and the removal of unnecessary people are the first essentials. The baby will deliver itself without assistance. Lay the mother down, remove unnecessary clothing and note the time of birth. The eyes of the child should be wiped and air passages cleared with a clean handkerchief, the baby wrapped in something warm and placed between the mother’s legs. Do not cut the cord. Unless there is bleeding, leave the placenta alone; if it slides out of the vagina it can be wrapped up and left beside the baby. If bleeding does occur lay a hand on the abdomen just above the umbilicus and try to identify the uterus. Having found it massage until it becomes firm; the bleeding should then cease. On no other occasion should the abdomen be touched as this might cause bleeding. The mother and baby should be transferred to hospital by ambulance as soon as possible.

Vocabulary
Deliver – poroditi
Delivery – porođaj
Placenta – posteljica
Umbilicus – pupčana vrpca
Uterus – materica
Vagina – vagina

SOURCE: Adapted from the book „Obstetric and Gynaecological Nursing“ by Rosemary E. Bailey, Bailliere, Tindall and Cassel Ltd. London, 1974. / AN ENGLISH READER MEDICINE, Sunita Bujas & Vesna Margan, Školska knjiga 2000.

The patient with burns
The nurse may be called upon to assist with injuries at the scene of the fire. If the victim’s clothing is on fire, his first panic reaction is to run, which only fans the flame. Rolling the burning person in a blanket on the ground to exclude oxygen, and so putting out the fire, is one of the best procedures. The person whose clothing is on fire should never stand since this increase the danger of breathing flames, heat and smoke into the lungs.
As soon as the burning clothes are extinguished, the patient should be transported to the hospital. A layman or nurse should assume that all burns are more severe than they appear to be.
While awaiting transportation to hospital facilities, the patient should be kept quiet and in a lying position. Loss of natural body heat may be prevented in part by covering the victim with blankets, coats or whatever is available. If clothing sticks to the burned surfaces it should not be removed. Exposed burned surfaces should be covered with sterile dressings or with the cleanest material available. Oils, salves and ointments should not be used on burns.
If the distance to reach medical aid is long and the burn is not too extensive, warm fluids (preferably containing salt) may be given by mouth, provided the patient can tolerate them.
Pain in extensive burns is best controlled by gentle and minimal handling and by application of dressing to exclude air.
Occasionally deep, third degree burns are almost painless, since nerve endings have been destroyed, and for the first few minutes the patient may appear not to be badly affected.

Vocabulary
Facility – sredstvo koje omogućava da se nešto uradi, da se obavi neka radnja
Be called upon – biti zamoljen, pozvan
Layman – laik
Sterile dressing – sterilni zavoj
Salve – lekovita mast, balzam
Ointment - mast

SOURCE: from the book Medical Surgical Nursing, Kathleen newton Shafer, Janet R. Sawyer, Audrey M. McCluskey, Edna Lifgren beck, the C.V. Mosby Company, Saint Lois, 1967. / AN ENGLISH READER MEDICINE, Sunita Bujas & Vesna Margan, Školska knjiga 2000.