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Waïti Posted 21 years ago
Vocabulary

To make house calls ???

An expression I heard in a TV show goes like '... you wouldn't be able to make house calls...' or something around those lines.
Apparently this was said in a negative or even disparaging way.
From what I gathered, the person in question was supposedly a doctor... and he wasn't that good maybe ? Is a house call when a patient calls you to visit him at home ?
Thanks for any native speaker to shed some light on this expression.
  

Top answer

) A house call is when a doctor makes a call on a patient at the patient's home. It is a standing joke in the US that you cannot get doctors to make house calls. Therefore if the character in question had for example lost his car, the person who said to him that he would not be able to make house calls was simply making a wry observation, since it would be assumed that the doctor would not be making any house calls anyway.

— Forbes

  • ) A house call is when a doctor makes a call on a patient at the patient's home.
  • It is a standing joke in the US that you cannot get doctors to make house calls.
  • Therefore if the character in question had for example lost his car, the person who said to him that he would not be able to make house calls was simply making a wry observation, since it would be assumed that the doctor would not be making any house calls anyway.
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6 Answers
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(I am assuming here it was an American TV programme.) A house call is when a doctor makes a call on a patient at the patient's home. It is a standing joke in the US that you cannot get doctors to make house calls. Therefore if the character in question had for example lost his car, the person who said to him that he would not be able to make house calls was simply making a wry observation, since
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Thanks Mr Forbes for the prompt reply.

Just double-checking on my understanding... So the 'house call' would be when the doctor calls the patient to follow up on him and enquire after him, which they never do... And the expression means something is as unlikely to happen as a doctor making house calls ?
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No, it's not when a doctor calls the patient, but when a doctor calls on a patient, that is visits the patient at her/his home.

Maybe the so-called doctor doesn't have a car/bike/etc..., lives isolated on a mountain-top, so he "won't be able to make house calls".
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Waiti,

I'll step in while Forbes is offline. A 'house call' is when the doctor visits the patient in the home of the patient. The last time this happened in America, as far as my experience goes, was when I was a boy in the 1940s.

Oops, didn't see Pieanne's post.
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Thank you PieAnne, DavKett and Forbes,
I think I've captured the general meaning behind the expression 'house calls' when used about doctors...
In which case the sensible greeting to this note has to be : stay healthy [H]
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What does it mean when someone said he/she is a protected "essential" and still make house calls?

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