Five years ago, a German doctor who came to Great Britain to practice medicine accidentally killed one of his first patients by prescribing a painkiller at 10 times the normal dose. His mistake was attributed to inadequate English language skills. Now European doctors who join Great Britain’s National Health Service will need to pass tougher tests of English language and communication skills.
Work hard at learning English!
See http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/24/european-nhs-doctors-language-checks
Comments
Oops. I clicked on the wrong thing and sent a blank comment. Here is what I want to say. Yes, Jasmin, that is so true. For instance, mg (milligrams)vs. ug (micrograms), and million ( 1,000,000) vs billion (1,000,000,000). Can anyone think of more examples?
I appreciate noaslpls's comment about the dangers of airplanes pilots who don't speak English well. I've added something about that to my English International page.
Almira3, giving a patient 10 times the normal dose of a pain killer is a very serious mistake. The patient died.
Doctors have no right to commit mistakes.
Thanks for sending the group of articles about problems caused by pilots' lack of good English skills. Many parts of the world have been affected, and it's all very scary.
PS. Your English is very good.
Hi Pauline Lerner, this is an interesting article about pilot's lack of English. Click here to read the article.
Noaslpls, thanks for your comment. I wasn't aware of that.
I've read about how some pilots due to lack of understanding English skills are not allowed to fly. This is because communication between Flight Control Towers and Pilots are all in English. Some flight incidents were said due to this lack of skills too.