English, baby!

WebMD

Date: Jan 20 2006

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

It’s late at night and you are not feeling well. You are vomiting and have a very bad stomach ache. Your body temperature is 101 degrees (Farenheit). What do you do? Go to the emergency room? Tough it out until morning, when the doctor’s office opens?

Listen to Taylor and I talk about a useful medical web site.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Taylor

Dave

Taylor: In this day and age, it’s really easy to find out how sick you are.

Dave: Such as?

Taylor: Such as, well, there’s WebMD.com.

Dave: Yeah.

Taylor: And, um, you go on there and you say, “I have this symptom, and I have this symptom, too.” And you add those two facts together and WebMD will tell you what you may or may not have. Of course, with many disclaimers that, you know, this is not a replacement for a doctor…

Dave: Right.

Taylor: ...but that, you know, the American psyche just loves that sort of information.

Dave: I agree, I agree. But it is convenient in a way that, you know, doctors’ fees are so expensive, so when I get a runny nose, or if I have a cough or the sniffles or something, I can just go onto WebMD, list all my symptoms, and, voila, you know, I have SARS or Bird Flu.

Quizzes

Go Super to take Quiz

Lesson MP3

Go Super to download full lesson MP3

Go Super to Ask Ebaby! teachers your questions!

The iTEP^® test

Sponsored by

Schedule an iTEP^® test and take the official English Practice Test.
Take Now >

Discussion

A few years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling very sick. My forehead was hot and I had a very bad stomach ache. I wanted to go to the hospital, but I was in the middle of a two-week lapse in my health insurance. I decided to tough it out, hoping that I would get better in a few days. Unfortunately, things only got worse.

After a few days, my friends brought me into the emergency room. My appendix had burst and I was rushed into surgery. A week later, while I was recovering in bed, I received a bill for $17,000.

Health care in the U.S. can be very, very expensive. The average visit to the emergency room costs about $400. WebMD is a useful site because you can list your symptoms and find out if it’s important or not for you to go to a hospital right away.

Check it out:

WebMD.

Comments

julywidiawati

Indonesia

I love this lesson, stomach ache, vomiting, tough it out..

Oakes02

United States

Listen to Taylor and I discuss… It should be listen to Taylor and ME discuss it, because if you take away Taylor you don’t say Listen to I discuss this…