to see a doctor

Question

I found two different translations for "going to see a doctor," and I was wondering which contexts you would use each in.

The first is 受診{じゅしん}する which is defined on jisho.org as "having a medical examination; seeing a doctor."

The other option I found on jisho was （医者に）見てもらう。My understanding of this is that a literal translation would be "I received the favor of (being seen by) a doctor."

The first translation makes sense in that it literally refers to the examination. However, if you wanted to say, "I'm going to see a doctor [at a specific time]" (like tomorrow, today, etc) which one of these phrases would you pick? How would this be different from indicating continuing care by saying "I am being seen by a doctor" (on a continuing basis)?

Thanks, folks!

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 23 '19 at 23:10

7

You can use both:

明日(病院を)受診します。

明日(医者に)見てもらいます。

(月に2回)皮膚科を受診しています。

(月に2回)皮膚科の先生に見てもらっています。

Difference:

受診 sounds relatively more objective and formal because it's a kango (See: wago-and-kango). But it's safe also in casual conversations.
受診 can take an institute name as a direct object.
As you already know, てもらう carries some nuance of "receiving favor", but it's not an issue unless you dislike the doctor.

As an aside, 見る can be replaced by 診る.

answered Apr 23 '19 at 23:10

naruto

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`As an aside, 見る can be replaced by 診る.` Doesn't it *have* to be 診る? I've never see it as 見る in this context. – istrasci Apr 24 '19 at 02:07
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@istrasci Yes, the majority of people use 診る in this sense, but I don't think 見る is wrong. Two dictionaries I checked say `（「診る」とも書く）`. – naruto Apr 24 '19 at 04:41
「病院を」でもOKですか？「病院で」ではなく – sazarando Apr 24 '19 at 05:42
@sazarando 病院で見てもらう is fine, but 病院で受診する sounds tautological and weird to me. 病院を受診する is fine, but 病院を見てもらう would mean "to have someone look at the hospital". – naruto Apr 24 '19 at 07:24
I found a Japaneses blog post about 病院を受診する　http://koko10.com/hospital_visit/ – Leebo Jan 26 '22 at 23:46

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 28 '19 at 03:56

It's like going against the premise of the question, but neither is the most popular expression people use to mean "visit a doctor to take medical treatment". We usually say 病院に行く or 医者に行く（お医者さんに行く）. For seeing a doctor constantly, we use 通う.

So:

3時に病院に行きます。
明日お医者さんに行きます。
毎月歯医者に通っています。 (歯医者 dentist)

Now,

見てもらう
Context-wise, this word is likely used when you are already focused on (care about) a specific symptom you have, such as "I have an unusual headache, so I'm going to see a doctor" or "I have a such-and-such chronic disease, so I must see the doctor every week". That's because it literally mean have it seen (= diagnosed, treated).
受診する
Although it's a single word to mean "see a doctor", the term is not a very casual word, say, for a child to use. Of course, it is okay for whoever an adult to use it in conversation, just always sounds like "ophthalmologist" instead of "eye doctor" (I hope I didn't misspell).

to see a doctor

2 Answers2