GREETING THE PATIENT

When you greet a patient, you should be professional, not too personal or informal, but still friendly. What you say depends on if:

• it is a new or repeat patient
• the patient hears and speaks for themselves or needs assistance
• the situation is an emergency or elective (a calm office interview)?

 Completely new patient

You should introduce yourself as well as greet the patient for the first time.

• “Hello, I am Nurse Thomas. I need to find out a bit about your background.”

Repeat patient + new doctor or nurse

You should introduce yourself and explain your role. For example:
“Hello, I’m Dr. Boyce. Dr. Roan is not in today.”

Repeat patient + existing doctor or nurse

You can get on with dealing with patient’s present issue because you know each other already. But remember, you still greet the patient politely!

• “Good morning, Mr. Smith. What brings you here again?”
  

Emergency situation

Here, stabilizing the patient is most important (for example, an accident with loss of blood and change in consciousness level). Your introduction is shorter but you should still speak to the patient if they are alert. Remember, the patient is not an object! Gentle but firm language can help calm and reassure them.

• “Hello, you’re in hospital. I’m the doctor OR nurse. Can you understand me?”

SPEAKING EXERCISE A

VERY IMPORTANT SPEAKING PATTERNS

Practice repeating ALOUD each example sentence in the lesson above. Focus on the common collocations, RUNNING THEM TOGETHER until they flow smoothly as ONE EXPRESSION. The collocations are underlined.

READING EXERCISE A

Instructions: For each situation, choose the appropriate greeting by the healthcare professional. For each, more than one answer may be correct.