At the Doctor and the Pharmacy
Learn 20 A2 English words for the doctor and the pharmacy - symptom, prescription, antibiotics, side effect, recover - with a story and a quiz.
A1 taught you to say I have a headache. A2 lets you have the whole appointment: describe the symptoms, understand the diagnosis, read the prescription and ask about side effects. There is also one British word in here that catches everybody out, because surgery does not mean what you think it means. Learn the 20 words, then read about the fortnight I spent believing the internet.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/ˈsɪmptəm/
A sign that you are ill: a pain, a cough, a rash.
Describe your symptoms to the doctor.
/ˌdʒiː ˈpiː/
Your normal local doctor. It means general practitioner.
Make an appointment with your GP first.
/ˈweɪtɪŋ ruːm/
The room where patients sit before they are called.
I sat in the waiting room for fifty minutes.
/ˈspeʃəlɪst/
A doctor who works in one area of medicine only.
The GP will send you to a specialist if you need one.
/ˈdentɪst/
The doctor who looks after your teeth.
I broke a tooth and had to see a dentist.
/ˈblʌd preʃə(r)/
The force of the blood in your body. It can be high or low.
The nurse took my blood pressure twice.
/ˈblʌd test/
When they take a little blood to check for problems.
She sent me for a blood test to be safe.
/ɪnˈfekʃn/
An illness caused by bacteria or a virus getting inside you.
It was a small skin infection.
/ræʃ/
Red marks on your skin caused by illness or an allergy.
The rash started on my arm on Tuesday.
/sɔː(r)/
Painful, especially from use or infection. Very common with throat.
I had a sore throat for four days.
/ˈdɪzi/
Feeling that everything is turning around you.
I felt dizzy when I stood up quickly.
/sɪk/
In Britain, be sick means to vomit. Feel sick = feel you might.
I did not feel sick once, luckily.
/prɪˈskrɪpʃn/
The paper from a doctor that lets you get medicine.
She gave me a prescription for a week.
/ˌæntɪbaɪˈɒtɪks/
Medicine that kills bacteria. Usually plural: a course of antibiotics.
Finish the whole course of antibiotics.
/ˈpeɪnkɪlə(r)/
Medicine that stops pain, like paracetamol.
I bought a painkiller for my throat.
/ɪnˈdʒekʃn/
Medicine given with a needle.
There was no injection, thankfully.
/ˈbændɪdʒ/
A long piece of cloth you put around an injury.
I bought a bandage I did not need.
/ˈtriːtmənt/
What the doctor does or gives you to make you better.
The treatment was seven days of tablets.
/ˈsaɪd ɪfekt/
Something else the medicine does that you did not want.
The only side effect was an upset stomach.
/rɪˈkʌvə(r)/
To get better after an illness. Always recover from.
I began to recover on the third day.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
Doctor Internet
The first mistake I made was typing my symptoms into a search box at eleven o’clock at night.
It had begun as a small red rash on my forearm on the Tuesday. By Thursday it had spread, I felt slightly dizzy whenever I stood up too quickly, and I had developed a sore throat as well. The internet informed me, within about four minutes, that I had eleven different diseases, and that two of them were extremely serious.
So on Friday morning I went to the GP. I sat in the waiting room for fifty minutes next to a man who was coughing with real commitment, and I remember thinking that whatever I had walked in with, I was going to leave with something extra.
The doctor was in her sixties and entirely unimpressed by any of it. She looked at my arm for approximately six seconds, asked me three questions, took my blood pressure, and said it was a skin infection, almost certainly from a small cut I could not remember getting. She sent me for a blood test anyway because of the dizziness, and told me it would very probably be nothing. It was nothing.
She wrote me a prescription for antibiotics and told me two things I have remembered ever since. The first was to finish the entire course even after I felt completely better. The second was that there might be a side effect – they could upset my stomach for a few days – and that this was normal and not a reason to stop taking them.
At the pharmacy I also bought a painkiller for my throat, and a bandage, which the pharmacist told me very gently that I did not need. I bought it anyway. It felt as though it completed the situation.
There was no injection, no specialist, and no drama of any kind. The treatment was seven days of tablets and an instruction to drink more water. I did not feel sick once. I began to recover on about the third day, and by the following Friday there was nothing left to look at.
The only genuinely painful part of that fortnight was completely unrelated. I broke a tooth on a date stone on the Sunday and had to see a dentist on the Monday, who remained cheerful throughout in a way I did not appreciate at the time and appreciate slightly more now.
I have not typed a symptom into a search box since. It is not that the internet is always wrong. It is that it has no idea which of its eleven answers is yours, and a doctor who has looked at ten thousand arms usually does.
The British word that confuses everybody. In British English, a surgery is not an operation – it is the building where your GP works. I have an appointment at the surgery at four simply means the doctor’s office. The operation is called an operation. Americans avoid the whole problem by saying the doctor’s office.
Be sick means something specific in Britain.
I feel sick = I think I might vomit
I was sick = I vomited
I am ill = I am unwell in general
In American English sick just means ill, so I am sick is completely normal there. In Britain it will make people step backwards.
Symptom or illness? A symptom is the sign – a cough, a rash, a temperature. The illness is the thing causing it. Doctors ask about symptoms first.
Antibiotics and painkillers. Antibiotics kill bacteria and do nothing at all for a cold, which is a virus. You get them on prescription. Painkillers you can buy over the counter, which means without a prescription. And we say a course of antibiotics, and doctors always tell you to finish it.
Recover takes from: She is recovering from an operation. Never recover of.
Sore is used for pain caused by use or infection: a sore throat, sore eyes, sore muscles. Use painful for everything else.
What you feel: symptom, rash, sore, dizzy, sick.
Who you see: GP, specialist, dentist, waiting room.
What they do: blood pressure, blood test, injection, treatment.
What you get: prescription, antibiotics, painkiller, bandage.
What happens next: infection, side effect, recover from.
Practise the appointment out loud: I have had a sore throat for four days and a rash on my arm. I feel dizzy when I stand up. Are there any side effects?
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
Want feedback from a real tutor on your reading, writing and speaking?
Book a Free Consultation