An ambulance is a vehicle that takes sick or injured people to hospital: call an ambulance. It isn't a place where you see a doctor: that's a clinic or a health centre. In Britain, a family doctor's practice is called a GP surgery or just a surgery: here the word means a doctor's office, not operations. A patient who gets treatment but doesn't stay in hospital is an outpatient.
ambulance: will you get the meaning right?
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call + an ambulance; an ambulance + arrives / takes sb to hospital; by ambulance; outpatient + clinic/treatment
- When the cyclist didn't get up, a passer-by called an ambulance straight away.
- She was taken to hospital by ambulance, but the doctors let her go home the same evening.
What changed
First versionI went to the ambulance to get a blood test.
RevisionI went to the clinic to get a blood test.
In some languages, a word that looks like ambulance means an outpatient clinic, so it's tempting to use it for a place. But in English an ambulance is a vehicle. Went to the ambulance to get a blood test sounds as if you gave blood inside an emergency vehicle. The place where you go to see a doctor is a clinic.
The people who arrive in an ambulance are usually called paramedics in Britain and the US, not doctors: The paramedics gave him oxygen and took him to hospital. A phrase like ambulance doctor isn't what English speakers normally say.
Your turn
My sister twisted her ankle, but she could still walk, so we drove her to the ___ ourselves.
Show the answer
clinic — The speaker's sister could walk, and they drove her there themselves, so you need a place where she can see a doctor: a clinic. An ambulance is the emergency vehicle itself, and you can't drive someone to it.
Describe a time when you or someone you know needed urgent medical help. Say whether anyone called an ambulance and where the person ended up.
When my neighbour slipped on the ice, we called an ambulance, and the paramedics took him to hospital with a broken wrist.
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