Wards and departments in a hospital

 Your main place of work as a nurse is going to be a hospital. 

 Hospitals vary widely in the services they offer and therefore, in the departments they
have.
 Modern hospital buildings are designed to minimize the effort of medical personnel
and the possibility of contamination while maximizing the efficiency of the whole
system. 
 Travel time for personnel within the hospital and the transportation of patients
between units is facilitated and minimized.

Intensive Care Unit. Photo: Norbert Kaiser.

License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic

DEPARTMENT, UNIT or WARD?

 Department: a specialized division of a large organization; "you'll find it in the

hardware department"; 
 Unit: an organization regarded as part of a larger social group; "after the battle the
soldier had trouble rejoining his unit” 
 Ward: block forming a division of a hospital (or a suite of rooms) shared by patients
who need a similar kind of care; 

Sometimes the words are interchangeable, but you will mainly hear speak about departments
and patients’ wards.

Here you have a list of some of the most common departments or units you may find in a
hospital:
  A & E: Accident and Emergency: it is a department specializing in acute care of
patients who don’t have a prior appointment and who come to the hospital either by
their own means or by ambulance. 
 ICU: Intensive Care Unit: it is a specialized department in a hospital that provides
intensive-care medicine.
 Operating Theatre: it is a room where operations are performed
 Radiology or X-Ray: it is a department where radiographies are taken to patients
 Laboratory: it is a place equipped for experimental study or for testing and analysis
 Outpatients’:  it is a department where you can find those patients who are not
hospitalized overnight but who visit a hospital or a clinic for diagnosis or treatment.
 Kitchen: it is a place aimed at cooking and serving food.
 Pharmacy: it is a place where medicines are compounded or given out.
 Technical Services: it is a department that manages and maintains Hospital facilities
and critical services.
 Blood bank: it is a place for storage of or an institution storing blood or plasma
 Administration: it is a place where the execution of something is directed.
 Term watch

Outpatient: short visit to hospital that lasts no more than a day.

Inpatient: hospital visit that requires at least one night's stay on a ward.

Citation: UNIT 2. Wards and departments in a hospital. (2011, March 25). Retrieved
September 17, 2013, from OCW Universidad de Cantabria Web site:
http://ocw.unican.es/ciencias-de-la-salud/ingles/materiales-de-clase-1/unit-2.-wards-and-
departments-in-a-hospital.

Find A Short Description Of Some Wards And Departments In The Hospital Below
Based On Certain References (book, website, etc)!

1. Accident and emergency (A&E)

2. Admission dept.
3. Anaesthetics
4. Body death room
5. Breast screening
6. Cardiology
7. Chaplaincy
8. Critical care
9. CSSD
10. CVCU
11. Delivery room
12. Dentistry clinic
13. Diagnostic imaging
14. Discharge lounge
15. Doctor’s lounge
16. Ear nose and throat (ENT)
17. Elderly services department
18. Emergency room
19. Gastroenterology
20. General surgery
21. Geriatric ward
22. Gynaecology
23. Haematology
24. Information center
25. Maternity departments
26. Medical ward
27. Microbiology
28. Neonatal unit
29. Nephrology
30. Neurology
31. Nurse station
32. Nutrition and dietetics
33. Obstetrics and gynaecology units
34. Occupational therapy
35. Oncology
36. Operating theater
37. Ophthalmology
38. Orthopaedics
39. Outpatient dept.
40. Pain management clinics
41. Pediatric ward
42. Perinatology
43. Pharmacy
44. Physiotherapy
45. Radiotherapy
46. Renal unit
47. Rheumatology
48. Sexual health (genitourinary medicine)
49. Surgical ward
50. Urology