Why Men Make Rotten Patients

Most men make dreadful patients. When they have a headache there is trouble if anyone makes a sound.

When a man has flu he lies in bed while his wife waits on him hand and foot.

When she has a pain in her chest she happily accepts being told that there is nothing seriously wrong. He remains miserable and convinced that he has heart trouble.

When he has been ordered to rest that’s just what he does, complaining bitterly if there is no one around to stir his tea or find him a handkerchief. She is expected to carry on looking after the rest of the family – even though she has been told to take things easy.

In addition to being mentally less able to cope with illness men are physically not as fit as women. Men are more likely to drink, smoke and eat too much and take too little exercise.

The man who dons his tracksuit and jogs to the pub every night still does far less exercise than his wife who has to cart the groceries from the shops, handle the washing and lug the vacuum cleaner up and down stairs.

Most men know they aren’t as fit as women. So when they’re ill they’re frightened. Their fear is reinforced by the knowledge that a woman’s life expectation is longer than a man’s. Although today’s women drink and smoke more and take on greater responsibility than in the past, the number of years by which they can expect to outlive a man is increasing.

Men are more likely to die in accidents and of lung cancer. They’re more likely to commit suicide and die of heart disease.

It’s not just illness that makes men such rotten patients – it’s fear!

(from an article by Dr Vernon Coleman in The Daily Mirror)

• Give a summary of the text.

2.4. Speech practice.

• Describe your own or your friend’s experience of being a patient / of being seriously ill.

• Speak on your medical research results on who make more rotten patients: men or women.

III. A hospital with a difference

3.1.  Read the statements about hospitals and nurses. Try to guess the words that go in the blanks. Then listen to the recording and see if you were right. Which statements do you agree with?

HOSPITALS

1. I don’t have a great deal of faith in … as a whole.

2. But I do feel, I agree, that, that, that … doctors leave a bit … be desired.

3. They, they don’t seem to erm, ask your opinion … what’s going on …your own body, or you know, … you actually feel.

4. Because … most hospitals when the patient walks in … lose all of their rights, and they … to conform.

5. I don’t think you … gen-, generalise too much.

NURSES

6. I think nurses for, for … work they do, and erm, the help … give patients, which is probably more … the doctors, er, … obviously underpaid.

7. Yeah, I, I think er, th-, nurses … the whole … very, very nice. Th, th, they’er very erm, very good, erm, … you know, reassurance and whatnot.

8. I think nurses always … the best they can.

3.2.  You are going to hear about a National Health Service hospital at Burford in Oxfordshire, where the experience of being a patient is very different from that in an average hospital.

• Before you listen, work in groups of three or four to try and predict what might be different about this hospital and the way the nurses work there.

• Find out the meaning of the following words and word combinations.

nursing assessment to identify a problem to set some goal to aim for a long-term goal a mid-term goal

to agree on smth to negotiate to conform a social occasion to do a sing-along on the piano to lift people out of feeling ill

3.2.1. Now listen to the recording once and take notes about how the hospital is organised. Compare your notes with another student’s, and negotiate a common set of notes. You can listen a second time if you want to.

3.2.2. Work with another student to act out a patient’s first interview (“nursing assessment”) at Burford Hospital. One of you will play the nurse, and another the patient. When you have finished find a new partner and change roles.

3.3. Speech practice.

• Describe a hospital with a difference. What would you change in your medical system? What treatment can be received at your hospital?

• Speak on a hospital nurse’s work.