MEDICAL FRENCH COURSE ONLINE

Take an online medical French course to speak confidently with your French-speaking patients

Doctors performing surgery in an operating room
two surgeons during an operation

ONLINE MEDICAL FRENCH COURSE OVERVIEW

Perhaps you don’t have time to take a medical French course in a language school. Perhaps you  would like to have personalised medical French classes online to work on specific contents related to medicine. Or perhaps you would like to practise orally to develop your fluency while simulating a wide range of interactions in French between a doctor and a patient.

You are a doctor, a house physician, a specialist or a medical student and you want to study French to be able to communicate during an internship in a French hospital or acquire oral and written skills in French so that you can practise medicine in France or a francophone country. Whatever the reason may be, your teacher can help you to achieve your specific goals in the area of medical French. The medical French course online starts from the B1/B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Please note that the online medical French course can be adapted to suit the specific needs of paramedical professionals, veterinarians, dentists, pharmacists, therapists or other health-care workers.

If you have not yet reached B1 level, please refer to the menu entitled “General French classes” and consider taking general French lessons to reach B1 level  before starting the medical French course. Please click on the following link to get further information about general French classes.

How can your teacher help you develop your ability to communicate in the medical area?

Each medical French class online is designed to help you develop the four skills : listening, speaking, reading and writing with a special focus on oral skills, which are the skills you most need  when practising medicine. During your lessons, your teacher will enable you to improve your oral skills by role-playing common interactions between a doctor and his/her patient and simulating a wide range of other interactions. In order to improve your reading and comprehension skills, you will also study leaflets for medicinal products, medical papers, medical research articles in French, documents on the national health service’s website, and other relevant documents suited to your specific needs and medical speciality.

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW OF MEDICAL FRENCH FOR DOCTORS WHO WISH TO WORK IN A HOSPITAL IN FRANCE OR A FRANCOPHONE COUNTRY.

All the contents of the medical French course can be adapted to your needs and expectations: you can follow the whole course or only part of it according to your aims. The duration of the whole course ranges from 100 to 120 hours, depending on your entry level. 

Module 1

Discovering the French medical system, medical specialities and hospital services.

Module 2 

Getting to know the health-care team in a hospital.

Module 3 

Questioning a patient.

Module 4 

Examining a patient and explaining what type of medical examination will be carried out.

Module 5 

Giving instructions to a member of the health care team and receiving news about a patient.

Module 6 

Writing a clinical observation and consulting a senior doctor to obtain advice.

Module 7 

Collecting the results of biological examinations and understanding medical data.

Module 8

Visiting patients in a department with a para-medical team and presenting a serious medical case to a senior doctor.

Module 9 

Prescribing a treatment and explaining a prescription to a patient.

Module 10 

Discharging a patient from hospital and writing a medical report.

Module 11 

Arranging an appointment for an examination or medical consultation.

Module 12 

Welcoming and giving information to a patient’s family.

Module 13 

Making an oral presentation during a staff meeting and discussing a medical article.

Module 14 

Discussing a patient’s case with a student.

Module 15

Changing shifts with the on-call physician at hospital. 

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW FOR DOCTORS WHO WISH TO WORK AS GENERAL PRACTIONERS ON AN INDEPENDENT BASIS

Each medical French lesson and course module can be personalised and adapted to your specific needs.

Module 1

Getting to know the French medical system and the national insurance health system.

Module 2  

Questioning a patient.

Module 3 

Examining a patient.

Module 4

Prescribing a treatment and explaining a prescription to a patient.

Module 5 

Writing a letter to a specialist to request his advice. 

Module 6 

Answering patient’s questions and communicating complex medical matters in layman’s terms.

Module 7

Alerting a patient to the risks of diseases and high-risk behaviours. Formulating recommendations.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE MEDICAL FRENCH COURSE

WHAT MEDICAL STUDENTS ARE SAYING

Anne Donnelly, family medicine physician and clinical professor, Philadelphia.

“I am a family medicine physician working in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. My practice cares for many patients from other countries, many of whom do not speak English. I have come to realize many of them come from countries where French is often their second language. Having studied French throughout college (over 35 years ago), I have often regretted that I did not keep up with my French because I could use it to better communicate with these patients. It is easy to find a Medical Spanish course but after searching for some time for a Medical French course and not finding one, I found Olivia’s website and reached out to her to see if she could help me. 

I was very nervous for our first meeting but she put me at ease right away. She was able to assess my current level and came up with a proposed curriculum to help me meet the goals that we developed together after discussing what I wanted to accomplish.

Olivia is an amazing teacher! She is warm, friendly and encouraging, which was very important to me because I felt so insecure in my French (especially speaking). She knows just how to challenge me to continue my progression toward the successful achievement of my goals. She also has a clear understanding of what skills are needed to be able to communicate in a medical setting. She has produced creative exercises that serve to improve my grammar and my medical vocabulary. 

We meet weekly for an hour and start each session just talking to practice French conversation and improve my general vocabulary. We then progress to the material for that class. She will give me things to work on over the week between classes. It could be reviewing something that I need to work on or preparing something new for the next class. She is always available by email for questions. While we have a set day and time for our class, she is flexible and if I have work responsibilities that come up we will adjust the date or time. 

I honestly cannot believe how far I have come since starting to work with her less than a year ago. I will be very sad when our time together ends. She has helped me rediscover my love for the French language. I cannot recommend her highly enough.”

Amanda Hanson, emergency physician, Canada.

“I’m an emergency physician in a busy tertiary care emergency department in Canada. I started studying medical French for when I have Francophone patients in the Emergency Department and for when I eventually make the transition to doing international work later in my career.

I found Olivia’s online Medical French courses after looking for an in-person course for years, with little luck.  There are very few instructors with an adequate level of medical knowledge to teach what you need to know to interact both with patients and other physicians in a clinical setting.

I have been studying French off and on both in person and online for about 13 years.  I have been working with Olivia for almost a year now. I have had many excellent teachers over the years, but Olivia is by far one of the best.   

She is professional, organised, flexible and obviously has a great deal of experience in her field.  The courses are high yield and allow me to focus on clinical scenarios and medical vocabulary that I encounter most frequently.  At the same time, we work on general French grammar that is useful in a clinical setting but also allows me to improve my overall use of the language.  I notice that each time I have the opportunity to work with a Francophone patient, my comfort and ability to communicate and understand has improved.

But most of all the courses are fun!  If you are working full time and studying on your few free days, it is nice to be able to look forward to the classes – which I certainly do.  

Thanks Olivia!!”

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN READING THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES RELATED TO MEDICAL FRENCH ON MY BLOG

If you would like to improve your use of verb tenses in a medical context, you could read my article that is dedicated to the most common tenses used in medical French.

You could also read my article that is dedicated to the 15 best ressources for learning medical French online.

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN THE FOLLOWING ONLINE RESOURCES FOR STUDYING MEDICAL FRENCH

You could use the online library offered by the Canadian government to discover the best medical resources in French.