“The” patient

A common mistake that ESL students make in the writing section is when making reference to the patient. This is done as necessity all throughout the letter.

Letter header

The patient’s full name and date of birth or age should be mentioned right at the start of the letter in the letter header “Re: (patient’s first name AND surname, date of birth).” This should always be included in a referral letter as the doctor or health specialist that you are writing to will most likely have hundreds of patients they see and need a quick way of filing and identifying patients without mixing them up.

First paragraph

In the introductory paragraph of the letter, you will invariably be mentioning the patient. It is important to mention at least the patient’s first name or their surname with appropriate title of Mr/Ms when referring to them.

Body paragraphs.

Ideally you would mention the patient’s name at the first sentence of every new paragraph. You would refer to the patient by their name if there is more than one person involved in the patient’s case. For example, the patient’s name may be mentioned when describing reports from a collateral account like a parent to not confuse the two.

Otherwise, you can refer to the patient as “the patient” or she/he etc as appropriate grammatically. Oftimes I see students just writing “patient” instead of “the” patient. It is always “the patient.” It may seem like a pedantic pointer but always remember this is a English test so proper grammar counts!