Language Skills Worksheet #7

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

Each one of these statements was dictated by a licensed physician. Diagnose what is wrong with the dictating doctor's statement and write your own version of what the physician failed to communicate.

"She has been on one liter of oxygen
since 1987 continuously."

Diagnosis:

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Corrected Text:

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"He suggested that the patient should have an enteral crisis of small bowel in 2-3 weeks after things settle down."

Diagnosis:

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Corrected Text:

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"...overall in the last two months there has now been, in recent weeks, a decrease in overall flow and bleeds lightly for a few days every two weeks most recently."

Diagnosis:

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Corrected Text:

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"This patient has had two ultrasounds during her pregnancy, one on 06/11/91 when she should have been 8 weeks, 6 days by dates and was 8 weeks, 3 days, with normal fetal heart tones seen on the ultrasound. On 09/23/91, she was 23.7 days by date and 23.5 days by ultrasound. No anomalies were noted."

Diagnosis:

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Corrected Text:

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"He has a history of incomplete small bowel obstruction and was admitted to the hospital here last on 10/28/90, at which time the condition resolved with placement of a nasogastric tube and did not require previous surgery."

Diagnosis:

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Corrected Text:

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