Medical English Courses in Malta
Course Focus:
The course is aimed at healthcare professionals who would like to extend their medical careers to the English-speaking world. By giving them the high-level, professional register of English that is necessary for effective communication in a medical context, this course enables them to do their usual work successfully in an English (and consequently international) environment. It is suitable for a variety of positions within the medical field, including those of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, midwives and several others to whom the course can be adapted as per individual students’ requirements.
Course Content:
The content of the course follows a structured yet flexible approach based on students’ specific needs, and can therefore be designed accordingly. It is, however, guaranteed that all material and sources used are up-to-date with the rapid developments of this ever-changing domain.
The course takes the student through the main stages of professional-patient communication, starting from the initial stages of examination, on to diagnosis and through to different types of medical treatment, all the while respecting the norms of medical ethics and etiquette.
Medical lexis covered includes:
- functional everyday language such as standard collocations used in professional – patient communication;
- specialist terminology (including anatomy, symptoms, illnesses, hospital environment / equipment etc.);
- correspondent abbreviations etc..
The vocabulary learnt is recycled and reinforced in discussions, role-plays and other relevant activities that are meant to authentically simulate real-life situations in the medical professional’s workplace.
The language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking are developed and practised, often in combination, by being integrated in medical practices / settings such as the following:
- listening to typical professional-patient and professional-professional dialogues / consultations and simulating such exchanges in role-plays;
- communicating effectively with patients by understanding colloquial and layman’s terms;
- communicating effectively with professional colleagues using specialist terminology;
- interpreting, assessing and presenting a diagnosis;
- asking about and understanding patients’ descriptions of symptoms, filtering through and analysing given information, recording it correctly;
- giving accurate information to patients using non-jargonistic, layman-friendly language;
- discussing delicate situations with sensitivity and professionalism, for eg. when giving patients / patients’ relatives bad news;
- understanding case histories;
- presenting cases and assessments, arguing opinions, discussing treatments;
- understanding and using medical documents, dictionaries, journals, diagrams, reference books and other relevant material.