Breakdown of En la consulta, la médica escucha a cada paciente con mucha atención.
Questions & Answers about En la consulta, la médica escucha a cada paciente con mucha atención.
In this sentence, consulta refers to the doctor’s office / consulting room or the place where the doctor sees patients.
In Spain:
- La consulta can mean
- the room/office: Estoy en la consulta = I’m in the doctor’s office.
- the time slot / appointment: Tengo consulta a las 5 = I have an appointment at 5.
It’s not usually translated as “consultation” in the abstract, formal English sense here; the most natural meaning is the physical place (or the appointment context).
- Médico is the traditional masculine form: el médico.
- The modern, regular feminine form is la médica (just like el enfermero / la enfermera).
So:
- el médico = the (male) doctor
- la médica = the (female) doctor
You may still hear some people use el médico in a “generic” way for doctors of any gender, but current usage in Spain very often uses la médica when the doctor is a woman.
La médico (using the masculine form with a feminine article) is not standard today; it’s seen as outdated or incorrect in most contexts.
Yes, you can say la doctora. Both are common in Spain:
- la médica – emphasizes the profession (medical doctor).
- la doctora – literally “the female doctor”, often used as a title of address (like “Dr. Smith”).
In many everyday contexts, la médica and la doctora are effectively interchangeable when talking about a female physician. The choice can be stylistic or personal preference.
Spanish uses the “personal a” before a direct object that is a person (or a pet, or personified thing).
- Verb: escuchar = to listen to (someone/something)
- Direct object: cada paciente (each patient, i.e. a person)
→ So we add a: escuchar a cada paciente
Compare:
- Escucha música. – She listens to music. (no a, not a person)
- Escucha a María. – She listens to María. (person → needs a)
In this sentence, a doesn’t mean “to” in a separate sense; it’s just a grammatical marker showing that cada paciente is a person as direct object.
For standard, careful Spanish, no. With people as direct objects, you are expected to use the personal a:
- ✅ La médica escucha a cada paciente.
- ❌ La médica escucha cada paciente. (sounds wrong to native speakers)
Dropping the a here would be considered incorrect or at least very non‑standard.
oír = to hear (to perceive sounds, whether you pay attention or not)
- Oigo un ruido. – I hear a noise.
escuchar = to listen (to) (to pay attention intentionally)
- Escucho a mi amiga. – I listen to my friend.
In the sentence escucha a cada paciente con mucha atención, escuchar is used because it implies active, attentive listening, which matches con mucha atención.
Because muy and mucho/mucha are used differently:
muy modifies adjectives and adverbs:
- muy bueno (very good), muy rápido (very fast)
mucho / mucha / muchos / muchas modify nouns (or can act as adverbs of quantity with verbs):
- mucha agua (a lot of water), muchos libros (many books)
Here, atención is a noun, so the correct form is:
- mucha atención (a lot of attention / very attentively)
That’s why you say:
- ✅ con mucha atención
- ❌ con muy atención
You could also say something like escucha muy atentamente, but that changes the structure (using the adverb atentamente instead of the noun atención).
In Spanish, adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.
- atención is a feminine noun.
So mucho must also be feminine singular → mucha.
- mucha atención = a lot of attention
- If it were a masculine noun, you’d use mucho: mucho ruido (a lot of noise).
En la consulta is an introductory phrase giving the setting (“In the consulting room / at the appointment”). In Spanish, when you start a sentence with such an adverbial phrase, it is very common (and recommended) to separate it from the main clause with a comma:
- En la consulta, la médica escucha a cada paciente…
You could also place the phrase at the end:
- La médica escucha a cada paciente con mucha atención en la consulta.
That’s grammatically correct, but the original order highlights the location/situation first.
In normal Spanish sentences, nouns (including professions) used as subjects almost always take an article:
- ✅ La médica escucha…
- ❌ Médica escucha… (sounds like a headline or a label, not like normal prose)
The article with professions is only usually dropped after the verb ser when you’re describing someone’s profession:
- Es médica. – She is a doctor.
- Mi hermana es médica. – My sister is a doctor.
But as the subject of a sentence, you use the article:
- La médica escucha a cada paciente…
In Spanish, cada:
- is invariable (it never changes form), and
is always followed by a singular noun:
- cada paciente – each patient
- cada persona – each person
- cada día – each day
So you cannot say cada pacientes.
If you want a more general “all patients” idea, you might use:
- todos los pacientes – all (the) patients
But cada paciente emphasizes each one individually.
The Spanish present tense (escucha) can express:
A habitual/general action:
- La médica escucha a cada paciente… = The doctor listens to each patient (this is what she generally does, her way of working).
An action happening right now (depending on context):
- In a vivid narrative, it could be understood as “is listening”.
Often, Spanish prefers the simple present where English would use the present continuous:
- Spanish: Ahora la médica escucha a un paciente.
- English: “Right now the doctor is listening to a patient.”
If you really want to stress the ongoing action, Spanish can use the progressive:
- La médica está escuchando a un paciente. – The doctor is listening to a patient (right now).
In most of Spain (Castilian pronunciation), you get:
- consulta – kon-SUL-ta
- c before o → like English k: con-
- médica – ME-di-ka
- c before a → like k: -ka
- paciente – pa-THYEN-te (in most of Spain)
- c before i/e → like English th in think: pa-THI-
(In Latin America, it would be s: pa-SI-.)
- c before i/e → like English th in think: pa-THI-
So, a typical Castilian pronunciation of the whole sentence:
- En la consulta, la médica escucha a cada paciente con mucha atención.
Roughly: En la kon-SUL-ta, la ME-di-ka es-KU-cha a KA-da pa-THYEN-te kon MU-cha a-ten-THYON.
In Latin American Spanish, c before e/i is usually pronounced like English s instead of th.
Paciente is a common‑gender noun:
- el paciente – the (male) patient
- la paciente – the (female) patient
In a cada paciente, we have no article (el/la), so the gender is not specified. It could be male or female patients; it’s a generic “each patient”.
The word itself (paciente) doesn’t change; only the article (or adjectives) around it show gender.