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Emergency Medicine & First Aid vocabulary · The Emergency Department

Discharge

Meaning in emergency medicine & first aid, with examples

/dɪsˈtʃɑːrdʒ/verbCommon term

In emergency medicine & first aid, discharge means: To allow a patient to leave the hospital or emergency department after assessment or treatment, usually with advice and follow-up arranged.

In Turkish: taburcu etmek, taburcu olmak

How it is used

Patients are discharged home, discharged with advice or discharged to their family doctor. The noun is also 'discharge': discharge letter, discharge summary. Be careful: in wound care 'discharge' also means fluid, such as pus, coming from a wound.

Example sentences

  1. Her X-ray was normal, so we discharged her with a sling.

  2. He was discharged from the ED after four hours.

Common collocations

  • discharge home
  • discharge letter
  • discharge summary
  • safe to discharge
  • admitTo accept a patient into the hospital as an inpatient, so that they stay for further treatment instead of going home.
  • emergency departmentThe hospital department that treats people who arrive with a sudden illness or injury, without an appointment, 24 hours a day.
  • A&EShort for accident and emergency: the usual British name for a hospital's emergency department.
  • triageThe process of quickly sorting patients by how urgently they need treatment, so that the sickest are seen first rather than in order of arrival.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: The Emergency Department

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.