English for nurses and healthcare workers
For nurses, carers, and doctors working in English, the language is the job: greeting a patient, asking about symptoms, explaining what happens next, handing over to a colleague. Clear, kind, confident English changes how patients feel and how safe care is.
Airi role-plays the people you speak with — a nervous patient, a worried family member, a colleague at handover — so you can rehearse these conversations before your shift. Practice the phrases the work relies on: "Can you tell me where it hurts?", "I'm going to take your blood pressure now", "Do you have any allergies?" This is language practice, not medical advice.
A quick example with Airi
What nurses say to patients in English, from hello to goodbye
A bedside visit tends to move through the same moments. One dependable line for each is enough to start with.
| Moment | A line that works |
|---|---|
| Introduce yourself | Good morning, Mrs. Clark. My name is Ana, and I'm your nurse today. |
| Check identity | Can you tell me your full name and date of birth, please? |
| Ask why they came | What brings you in today? |
| Ask before you touch | I'd like to change your dressing now. Is that all right? |
| Warn before it hurts | You'll feel a quick pinch. Take a deep breath for me. |
| Before you leave the room | Is there anything else you need before I go? Your call button is right here. |
WHO's 2007 Patient Safety Solutions guide on patient identification encourages at least two identifiers, such as name and date of birth, and says the room number should not be one of them. Ask the patient to say them instead of asking a yes-or-no question: a drowsy patient may answer yes to "Are you Mrs. Clark?" without really hearing it.
How to ask a patient about pain in English: the PQRSTU questions
Open RN's Nursing Fundamentals textbook lists PQRSTU among the mnemonics for pain questions and calls the 0 to 10 rating a common screening question. Each letter becomes a plain question.
- P, provocation and palliation. "What makes the pain worse? What makes it better?"
- Q, quality. "What does it feel like: sharp, dull, burning, or throbbing?"
- R, region and radiation. "Where exactly does it hurt? Does it spread anywhere else?" With patients, "spread" is easier to understand than "radiate".
- S, severity. "On a scale of zero to ten, where zero is no pain and ten is the worst pain you can imagine, how bad is it right now?"
- T, timing and treatment. "When did it start? Is it constant, or does it come and go? Have you taken anything for it?"
- U, understanding. "What do you think is causing it?"
Everyday words patients use for symptoms, and what they mean
Patients rarely use the clinical term. They describe symptoms in everyday words like these.
| The patient says | It means |
|---|---|
| I feel sick to my stomach. | Nausea |
| I threw up twice. | Vomiting |
| I can't keep anything down. | Vomiting whatever they eat or drink |
| I've got the runs. | Diarrhea (informal) |
| I feel lightheaded. | Feeling faint, as if about to pass out |
| I have pins and needles in my hand. | Tingling |
| I can't catch my breath. | Shortness of breath |
| It burns when I pee. | Painful urination |
"Dizzy" needs a follow-up question: the MedlinePlus medical encyclopedia notes that the word is often used for two different symptoms, lightheadedness and vertigo. "Do you feel like you might faint, or is the room spinning?"
SBAR: how to hand over a patient or call a doctor in English
SBAR gives a handover, or handoff, a fixed order. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement publishes it as a tool for conversations that need a clinician's immediate attention, and WHO's 2007 Patient Safety Solutions guide on handovers suggests using it. Your hospital's protocol comes first; the lines below show the English.
| Step | What goes here | Sample line |
|---|---|---|
| Situation | The problem, briefly | This is Ana, the nurse looking after Mr. Chen in bed 12. His blood pressure has dropped to eighty-five over fifty. |
| Background | Relevant history | He's 68 and had a hip replacement yesterday. His blood pressure was normal this morning. |
| Assessment | What you found and think | He looks pale, and his dressing is soaked with blood. I'm worried he's still bleeding. |
| Recommendation | What you want | I need you to come and see him now. What should I do in the meantime? |
The WHO guide also says read-back should be part of a handover: the person receiving information writes it down and reads it back to confirm it. So when the doctor gives you an instruction, finish with: "Let me read that back: recheck his blood pressure in five minutes, and you're on your way. Is that right?"
Bedside English habits that confuse or upset patients, and what to say instead
| Instead of | Say | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Is it paining here? | Does it hurt here? | In everyday American and British English, "pain" is rarely used as a verb. Patients expect "hurt". |
| Open your mouth. | Can you open your mouth for me, please? | A bare command can sound harsh. "Can you ... for me?" makes it a request. |
| Are you hypertensive? | Do you have high blood pressure? | Clinical terms belong in the handover. With patients, use the everyday words. |
| Do you understand? | I want to be sure I explained that clearly. Can you tell me how you'll take this medicine? | A patient can say "yes" without having understood. Asking them to explain it back is called teach-back. |
| Don't worry, you'll be fine. | I can see you're worried. What concerns you most? | You can't promise that. Naming the worry keeps the patient talking. |
An eight-minute bedside and handover rehearsal with Airi
Airi plays the patient, then the doctor, out loud. The free credits cover about eight minutes of speaking, enough for a short bedside conversation and a handover. Use invented patients, never a real person's details.
- Set the scene: "Be Mrs. Clark, a patient with stomach pain. Use everyday words, not medical terms. I'm your nurse, and I'll speak first."
- Greet her, check her name and date of birth, then ask the PQRSTU questions.
- Explain a blood test in plain words, then ask her to tell you in her own words what will happen.
- Switch roles: "Now be the doctor on call, and interrupt me with questions." Hand over Mrs. Clark in SBAR order and end with a read-back.
- When a small fix appears, say the corrected line again the way you would say it to the patient or the doctor, then carry on.
How to get the most from it
Rehearse the first minute
The greeting, the name and date-of-birth check, and your opening question change little from one patient to the next. Say them until they are automatic.
Explain, then ask for it back
Explain a procedure in everyday words, then ask the patient to tell you what will happen. Practice both halves out loud.
Practice the handover
Summarizing a patient quickly and clearly is what a shift change needs. Say an SBAR handover for an invented patient, then say it again in fewer words.
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