A: Help! Are you a doctor? My poor little Frankie has just stopped breathing! Oh my gosh, Help me! I tried to perform CPR, but I just don’t know if I could get any air into his lungs! Oh, Frankie!
B: Ellen, get him hooked up to a monitor! Someone page Dr. Howser. Get the patient to hold still, I can’t get a pulse! Okay, he’s on the monitor. His BP is falling! He’s flatlining!
A: NOOOOOO! Frankie! Doctor! Do something!
B: Someone get her out of here! Get me the defibrillator. Okay, clear! Again! Clear! Come on! dammit! I’m not letting you go! Clear! I’ve got a pulse!
C: Okay, what’s happening?
B: The patient is in acute respiratory failure, I think we’re going to have to intubate!
C: Alright! Tube’s in! Bag him! Someone give him 10 cc’s of adrenaline! Let’s go, people move, move!
A: Doctor, oh, thank god! How is he?
B: We managed to stabilize Frankie, but he’s not out of the woods yet; he’s still in critical condition. We’re moving him to intensive care, but...
A: Doctor, just do whatever it takes. I just want my little Frankie to be okay. I couldn’t imagine life without my little hamster!
M: Hello everyone! Welcome to another great lesson with us here at EnglishPod. My name is Marco.
E: And I’m Erica.
M: And today we’re gonna be talking about an ER, an emergency room.
E: Exactly, we’re bringing you our very own ER drama here at EnglishPod.
M: Yeah, doctor shows are very popular with people. Medical terms and all that staff.
E: Yeah, so, we’re gonna teach you some words that you might hear commonly in, uh, medical shows on TV or in movies. Um, this is really common language in television.
M: Or even in at a hospital, right?
E: Well, yeah! But… But let’s hope our listeners don’t have to face this.
M: Okay, so, let’s preview some words in “vocabulary preview”.
Voice: Vocabulary Preview.
M: Alright, so, what’s our first word?
E: Okay, the first word is CPR.
M: CPR.
E: CPR.
M: So, that’s pretty easy. What does that mean?
E: Um, well, it… It’s short for Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation.
M: Okay.
E: Uh, that means anything to you?
M: Hehe. Well, cardio is related to the heart.
E: Aha
M: Pulmonary refers to the lungs.
E: Yep!
M: Resuscitation means to come back to life.
E: Yes! So, basically, CPS is… Um, you know, when someone stops breathing…
M: Uhu.
E: You put your mouth on their mouth and you breathe inside their lungs.
M: Okay, to give them air.
E: Ex… Yeah.
M: Okay.
E: So, CPR.
M: That’s CPR, okay. So, let’s take a look at our next word - BP.
E: BP.
M: So, BP is short for…
E: Blood Pressure.
M: Blood pressure.
E: Yeah.
M: That’s just the way that doctors use it in the emergency room.
E: Exactly, pretty simple.
M: Okay, so blood pressure. And our last word - Acute Respiratory Failure.
E: Acute Respiratory Failure.
M: So, what is that exactly? It sounds complicated.
E: Um, basically, it’s really serious… that you stop breathing.
M: You stop breathing.
E: Yeah.
M: Okay. So, if you going to Acute Respiratory Failure then the doctor or somebody has to perform CPR.
E: Right!
M: Alright, cool. Okay, so, we’ve… So, we’ve previewed these three great words, now let’s listen to our dialogue for the first time. It’s gonna be really fast and you gonna have a lot of drama in it, so, uh, don’t worry if you don’t understand everything.
E: Yeah, we’re gonna come back and teach you some of the important language.
DIALOGUE, FIRST TIME
M: Wow! So much drama over a little hamster.
E: Yeah, a little pet, hey?
M: A little pet, the little hamster.
E: Well, um, you know what, I can relate to this owner and, um, I’m gonna tell you a little bit more about that later.
M: Yeah, I know you have a really good story about this.
E: Yeah, but in the mean time, let’s look at some great language in “language takeaway”.
Voice: Language takeaway.
M: Alright, so, let’s take a look at our first word - intubate.
E: Intubate.
M: Intubate.
E: Intubate.
M: So, this is a medical procedure.
E: Exactly! Um, when a patient can’t breathe properly sometimes the doctor takes a log tube…
M: Uhu.
E: And puts it in to their mouth, um, and down their pipes, I guess, down their breathing tube…
M: Right.
E: So that they can breathe better.
M: Okay, so, that’s to intubate.
E: Yes.
M: Okay, so, once they’ve intubated the patient, they start to bag him.
E: Yeah, bag him.
M: Bag him.
E: Bag him.
M: Does that mean they like put a bag over that person’ head or something?
E: No, no, no, no, no… So, there is a bag attached to this intubation tube and you squeeze it to put air into the lungs.
M: Okay, so, you squeeze this bag and it puts air…
E: Yeah.
M: Through the tube.
E: I think this is just medical slang.
M: Yeah, I guess, bag him…???
E: Yeah, but you hear it all the time on TV, so…
M: Right.
E: It’s important our listeners know it.
M: Okay. Let’s look at our next word - critical condition.
E: Critical condition.
M: Critical condition.
E: The patient’s in critical condition.
M: This condition means it’s serious.
E: Right, if a patient is in critical condition, um, they’re either really really hurt, um, or really really sick and they could die pretty soon.
M: Okay. So, you don’t want to be in critical condition.
E: No.
M: Let’s take a look at our next word - stabilize.
E: Stabilize.
M: Stabilize.
E: Stabilize.
M: So, when the doctors stabilize a patient they take that patient out of danger.
E: Exactly! When a patient is stabilized, um, they probably won’t die in five minutes.
M: Okay.
E: But they could still be really sick. They could be in critical condition, right?
M: But it’s under control.
E: Exactly!
M: Okay.
E: Yeah.
M: Stabilize.
E: Uhu.
M: Let’s look at our last word - ICU.
E: ICU.
M: ICU.
E: Intensive Care Unit.
M: Okay, that’s what it means.
E: Uhu.
M: Intensive care unit.
E: Yep.
M: So, that’s a place where patients who are in critical condition are taken.
E: Right.
M: So, what’s the difference between ICU and a regular room?
E: Well, I don’t know I’ve never been in one.
M: Hehe.
E: Um, but I think like patients are monitored, ah, regularly and I think there’s, you know, maybe more… maybe there’re… uh, more nurses and fewer patients, so, there’s just a higher lever of care.
M: A higher lever of care.
E: Yeah.
M: Okay. Okay, so, it’s time for us to listen to our dialogue again. Now try to catch all of these medical terms that we’ve just talked about and then we’ll come back and explain a few phrases.
DIALOGUE, SECOND TIME
M: Okay, so, there’re some really good phrasal verbs in this dialogue.
E: Yeah, a couple of good phrasal verbs.
M: Okay, so, let’s take a look at these phrasal verbs in “putting it together”.
Voice: Putting it together. M: Alright, so, what’s our first phrasal verb today?
E: Hook up.
M: Hook up.
E: Hook up.
M: So, to hook up.
E: So, when we… When we talk about hooking something up, um, we are usually talking about electronics. Right, Marco?
M: Yeah, you usually hook up your TV…
E: Yeah.
M: Or your computer.
E: Yeah.
M: So, why don’t we listen to some examples of how we would use hook up?
Voice: Example one.
A: I finally got a Nintendo V. Come on, help me hook it up to the TV.
Voice: Example two.
B: I don’t know how to hook up this new DVD-player. Can you help me?
Voice: Example three.
C: I just hooked up my new HDTV. Wanna come over and watch a movie?
E: Great, so, you can see that there’re few different, um, variations of this pattern here with the word hook up, because it’s a phrasal verb.
M: Exactly.
E: And I think the same patterns could apply to our next phrasal verb.
M: Hold still.
E: Hold still.
M: Hold still.
E: Hold still.
M: So the doctor needed the patient to hold still.
E: Right, to stop moving.
M: Stop moving, exactly.
E: Uhu.
M: Okay, let’s listen to some more examples of hold still because again it’s a really great phrasal verb that you can change up a little bit.
Voice: Example one.
A: If you don’t hold still, I can’t see if you have something in your eye.
Voice: Example two.
B: Hold still while she cuts your hair or else she might make a mistake.
Voice: Example three.
C: Hold still! You have a bee on your back!
M: Okay, hold still. Great word.
E: Yep.
M: Hehe.
E: Alright, one final phrase for you - out of the woods.
M: Out of the woods.
E: Outta the woods.
M: Out of the woods.
E: So, when someone’s out of the woods, they’re…
M: Free from danger.
E: Aha, safe.
M: Okay, safe.
E: Yeah.
M: I guess it’s kind of a saying.
E: Yeah.
M: Like “I’m out of the woods”.
E: Yeah.
M: I’m…
E: Yeah.
M: I’m free. I’m… I’m safe.
E: I guess there’re two variance of this phrase. We can say “I’m out of the woods” or “we’re out of the woods”