This paper outlines a strategy for developing a pedagogic word list of roughly 600 terms designed for first-year healthcare students, integrated into a broader set of teaching materials. By comparing a previous project at Hiroshima University on medical English materials with those required for a more general healthcare English context, we outline a practical and achievable way of constructing the new materials. We first situate the healthcare English project within the wider university English language curriculum. We then analyse the design and development of a syllabus using a situation, resources, and needs (SiReN) framework, previously applied to medical English materials. A key challenge is that first-year students typically lack the specialist background knowledge needed to engage fully with technical content. Consequently, we argue for prioritising healthcare professional–patient communication, rather than communication between professionals, offering a more accessible register for learners at this stage of both language and disciplinary development. We propose a content-based approach centred on simulated patient cases. The careful selection of medical conditions is discussed as a means of connecting the materials to the wide range of healthcare specialisations. The paper also explores how simulated discourse can be generated using a large language model, ChatGPT, through a simulated patient scenario involving several specialists, and how key terms can be extracted for inclusion in the 600-word list. A distinction is made between word lists intended for curriculum planning and those used as student reference tools. Specialist review of the materials and word list is emphasised to ensure their accuracy and appropriateness.
DAVIES et al. (Sun,) studied this question.