I would like to expand my vocabulary with some medical terms in English. I have been thinking about how to say, for example, if I go to see a doctor for a blood test.
Q1) Are these phrases correct?
a) "Tomorrow I will have to see a doctor on an empty stomach to take blood for a REGULAR blood test."
b) "Tomorrow I will have to see a doctor on an empty stomach to take blood for a ROUTINE blood test."
c) "Tomorrow I will have to see a doctor to take blood for a REGULAR FASTING blood test."
d) "Tomorrow I will have to see a doctor to take blood for a ROUTINE FASTING blood test."
Q2) Can the phrase "fasting" be used instead of "on an empty stomach" as I write it?
Q3) I came across the term "a routine blood-work". Is it another term for "a blood test"?
Best Answer
A routine blood test is one that you might have as a cautionary measure, in the absence of any symptoms. A fasting blood test is the normal term for a blood test taken when you haven’t eaten for several hours. It would be unusual, but not ungrammatical, to speak of a routine fasting blood test. You’d be more likely to hear someone say I’m having a routine blood test tomorrow. It’s a fasting one, so I shan’t be able to eat after eight o’clock tonight. I haven’t heard the term routine blood-work.