Learn Hardcore French: Aux urgences, le médecin doit surveiller plusieurs cas graves en même temps, certains très urgents. - In the emergency room, the doctor has to monitor several serious cases at the same time, some very urgent.

Aux urgences, le médecin doit surveiller plusieurs cas graves en même temps, certains très urgents.

In the emergency room, the doctor has to monitor several serious cases at the same time, some very urgent.

Breakdown of Aux urgences, le médecin doit surveiller plusieurs cas graves en même temps, certains très urgents.

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Questions & Answers about Aux urgences, le médecin doit surveiller plusieurs cas graves en même temps, certains très urgents.

Why is it aux urgences and not something like à l’urgence or just à l’hôpital?

In everyday European French, les urgences is the fixed expression for the emergency room / the ER / A&E.

les urgences = the emergency department (literally “the emergencies”)
aux urgences = at the ER, because à + les = aux

So:

Je travaille aux urgences. = I work in the ER.
Il est allé aux urgences. = He went to the ER.

You could say à l’hôpital (at the hospital), but that’s more general and doesn’t specify the emergency department.

In some regions (e.g. parts of Canada), you may hear à l’urgence, but aux urgences is the most common in France.

Why is urgences plural in French when emergency is singular in English?

Historically, French conceptualizes the emergency department as the place where emergency cases (plural) are treated, hence les urgences.

So, even if you talk about it in a general sense, you still use the plural:

J’ai passé la nuit aux urgences.
→ I spent the night in the emergency room.

There is no singular l’urgence used with the same meaning in standard European French. L’urgence (singular) usually means urgency as an abstract concept, not the hospital ward.

Why le médecin and not un médecin or les médecins?

French often uses the definite article (le / la / les) to talk about a person in a generic role in a specific context, even if in English you would use a or the differently.

Here:

Aux urgences, le médecin doit surveiller…

This means something like:

“In the ER, the doctor has to monitor…”
→ understood as “the doctor (on duty there, in that situation)”

Alternatives:

Un médecin doit surveiller… = A doctor must monitor… (more general, any doctor, in general)
Les médecins doivent surveiller… = Doctors must monitor… (talking about doctors as a group)

Using le médecin paints a picture of the typical ER situation with the doctor who’s on duty in that scenario.

Does doit here mean “must” or “has to”? Is it strong obligation?

Doit (from devoir) can cover both must and has to. The strength of the obligation depends on context and tone.

Here: le médecin doit surveiller

Natural translation: the doctor has to monitor or must monitor
It implies a real duty / responsibility as part of the job, not just a mild suggestion.

If the speaker wanted something very soft like “should”, they might choose something like:

Le médecin devrait surveiller… = The doctor should monitor…

So in this sentence, doit expresses a strong, objective duty.

What exactly does surveiller mean here? Is it like English “to survey”?

Surveiller is a false friend with English to survey.

Here, surveiller means:

to watch closely,
to keep an eye on,
to monitor.

In a medical context:

surveiller un patient = monitor a patient (check vitals, watch their condition)

English to survey usually means to question a lot of people (do a survey) or to measure land, which is not the meaning of surveiller.

So in the sentence:

doit surveiller plusieurs cas graves
→ has to monitor several serious cases.

Why is it plusieurs cas graves and not plusieurs graves cas? What is the word order rule?

In French, the usual order is:

determiner → noun → adjective

Here:

plusieurs (determiner: several)
cas (noun: cases)
graves (adjective: serious)

So: plusieurs cas graves = several serious cases.

Putting graves before cas (plusieurs graves cas) would be incorrect. Most adjectives follow the noun. Only a limited group (often BAGS: Beauty, Age, Goodness, Size – like beau, vieux, bon, grand) often come before the noun. Grave does not belong to that group in this meaning.

Does graves here mean “grave” as in “tomb”, or something else?

No, graves here is an adjective meaning serious / severe.

un cas grave = a serious case
une maladie grave = a serious illness

The noun une tombe or une pierre tombale is a grave (as in cemetery).
The word grave as a noun does not exist in this sense in French.

So cas graves is correctly translated as serious cases.

What does en même temps literally mean and how is it used?

Literally: en même temps = at the same time.

Usage in this sentence:

surveiller plusieurs cas graves en même temps
→ monitor several serious cases at the same time / simultaneously

It’s very common and used like English at the same time, both literally and figuratively:

Je ne peux pas être partout en même temps.
= I can’t be everywhere at the same time.

In certains très urgents, why isn’t there a noun after certains? What does certains refer to?

Here, certains is a pronoun, not a determiner.

Earlier: plusieurs cas graves (several serious cases)
Then: certains très urgents = some (of them) very urgent

The noun cas is not repeated; it’s understood from context:

plusieurs cas graves…, certains très urgents
→ several serious cases at the same time, some (of these cases) very urgent.

So certains = some (of them), referring back to cas.

Why is urgents plural masculine in très urgents?

Because urgents must agree with what it describes.

The understood noun is cas, which is:
- masculine
- plural (plusieurs cas)

So the adjective urgent must be:

masculine plural → urgents

Structure:

certains (cas) très urgents
- certains: some (masc. plural)
- urgents: urgent (masc. plural)

If the noun were feminine plural, you’d see urgentes instead.

What is the difference between grave and urgent here? Why use both?

They describe different aspects of a medical case:

grave = serious, severe in terms of how bad the condition is
urgent = urgent, time‑critical, needs very quick attention

A case can be:

grave mais pas urgent (serious but not immediately urgent), or
urgent mais pas grave (needs quick attention but is not life‑threatening), or
both grave et urgent (serious and time‑critical).

The sentence says:

plusieurs cas graves → several serious cases
certains très urgents → some are very time‑critical as well.

So it adds nuance: not only are they serious, but some of them also require immediate intervention.

Why is there a comma before certains très urgents instead of a word like dont or qui sont?

The part after the comma is a kind of apposition, an extra comment about plusieurs cas graves.

plusieurs cas graves en même temps, certains très urgents.
= several serious cases at the same time, some very urgent.

In more explicit French, you could say:

…, dont certains sont très urgents.
= …, some of which are very urgent.

But in spoken and written French, omitting dont / qui sont and just adding certains très urgents is natural and stylistically lighter. The comma marks a pause, like in English:

“…several serious cases at once, some very urgent.”

Is it natural to start a sentence with a place like Aux urgences in French?

Yes. Putting the location at the beginning is very common to set the scene:

À l’école, les enfants doivent…
En France, on mange…
Aux urgences, le médecin doit…

It emphasizes the context / location first, then tells you what typically happens there. This is perfectly natural and common in French.