Language Skills Worksheets

Obviously, readers of this blog cannot fill in the blanks on these worksheets by entering data on their computer screens. However, readers should feel free to print out any of these worksheets for use as a teaching/learning tool in a professional setting.

Language Skills Worksheet #1
Doctors frequently use abbreviations, eponyms, and other mnemonic devices as a means of communicating vital patient information. However, each abbreviation can stand for more than one medical term.

Language Skills Worksheet #2
Many people fail to understand that someone in a foreign country who is transcribing dictation from doctors in American hospitals will be thinking in textbook English as opposed to the way English is spoken in America.

Language Skills Worksheet #3
Doctors frequently use the wrong word. This can result in either a grammatically incorrect statement or a raging Malapropism.

Language Skills Worksheet #4
Many doctors dictate in a conversational, stream-of-consciousness style. This habit can result in frequent contradictions and statements which make no sense. Poor sentence structure and improper punctuation, can cause further confusion.

Language Skills Worksheet #5
The constant presence of misplaced modifiers and dangling participles in a doctor's dictation offers a clear indication that the dictating physician suffers from impaired language skills.

Language Skills Worksheet #6
Many doctors suffer from the curse of the run-on sentence.

Language Skills Worksheet #7
Doctors will frequently dictate sentences in which the timing of certain events is suspicious, if not downright impossible.

Language Skills Worksheet #8
Doctors frequently dictate sentences which, although well-intentioned, imply that a person other than the patient is being diagnosed or receiving treatment.

Language Skills Worksheet #9
When dictating reports, doctors are attempting to memorialize certain facts and thoughts in print. If their thought processes involve a rambling, stream-of-consciousness approach to the English language, they are likely to dictate medical gobbledygook.

Language Skills Worksheet #10
Often, when documenting a patient's objective findings, a dictating doctor will use incorrect medical terminology in such a way as to defy anatomical standards.

Language Skills Worksheet #11
Many doctors do not listen to what they say. The results make them vulnerable to charges of practicing "nonsense medicine."