Chest X-Ray Examination

Abstract

Like Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's Alice in wonderland, other Alices in Radiology Department Land are confused and lost between medical Terms and everyday English. Alices in Radiology Department Land can be radiographers, radiologic technology students or medical interpreter candidates. Because many foreign patients visit hospitals in South Korea for minor procedures to major surgeries nowadays, medical professionals need to communicate with foreign patients. Generally, medical professionals learn not only medical terminology but also medical abbreviations, human anatomy and medical procedures at school. What medical professionals learn at school are written in English, but the word roots, prefixes and suffixes are from Latin or Greek. Therefore, ordinary people including international patients are not able to understand medical vocabularies unless they are majoring in health science fields. When medical professionals use medical terminology or anatomical names to explain radiologic tests and procedures to international patients, international patients seem to be lost due to the lack of comprehension in medical related vocabularies. From previous teaching experiences, medical professionals strongly believe that English speaking patients can understand medical terms because medical terms are written in English. Here is an example. A foreign patient needs to take an X-ray of his/her clavicle which is an anatomical term, and clavicle is called collar bone in everyday English. Thus, a foreign patient will not be able to understand the anatomical term clavicle at first, but he/she could understand collar bone without any difficulty. Meanwhile, medical tourism business is growing larger, and millions of patients from around the world flock to the hottest medical tourism destinations. One of the hottest medical tourism destinations is South Korea. From ChosunIlbo article on Apr. 2, 2012, Medical Tourism Growing at Over 30 Percent per Annum, the number of international patients visiting Korea is dramatically increasing at an annual rate of over 30 percent since 2009 according to Korea Health Industry Development. To be at the top of this trend, medical professionals who have good command of English are sought after from the hospitals because it is not feasible to offer best medical services to foreign patients without having good communication skills. In order to communicate to international patients, medical professionals need to know not only medical knowledge but also medical English to explain radiologic tests and procedures properly. This textbook is especially designed for the medical professionals. They have studied English more than ten years at schools and other institutions. They have been taught mainly reading skills and memorizing words in English among four macro skills which are reading, writing, listening and speaking. Based on their previous learning, their reading proficiency level is Intermediate high based on the ACTFL Proficiency 2012 Guidelines, so they can read and understand reading materials for test and procedures of radiology exams. Since medical professionals are in EFL environment, they have very little chance to speak English. Thus, their ability to speak English is Intermediate Low in Speaking skills based on the ACTFL Proficiency 2012 Guidelines.