Med students with ASL experience - advice/feedback?

[evescadeceus]

Hey ASLer's, I'm applying for 2004 and just starting ASL. I have been wanting to take these classes for years, but didn't have time until now. I have no deaf relatives, and have not signed prior to this class. My goal is to learn enough so that I can sign with patients, but I'm starting to doubt the plausibility of this given the amount of time I have to learn.

Is there anyone out there who is participating in an extracurricular ASL for students at their school? How often do you practice? Have you been exposed to deaf patients in a hospital setting? Did you find that you were able to communicate without an interpreter, or would you still describe yourself as interpreter dependent, despite your current signing fluency. Please mention if you have practiced for years with deaf friends/family.

Also, are there any of you who sign and have also learned a 2nd audial language. I'm not referring to those who learned a 2nd lang at home or in community, but those who learned 2nd lang at school. Do you find learning ASL more difficult than usual? I'm starting to suspect that the ability to learn a 2nd audial lang easily is not correlated with the ability to master signing easily.

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[doc05]

I don't speak ASL, so my take is more a matter of common sense...

in order to master any language, you've got to use it a lot. So without deaf friends or relatives, you should do what you can to find deaf people to "speak to." It will likely be difficult to try and pick up practical experience in the wards, etc., because it's not that often you'll need to use ASL.

best of luck.

 

[evescadeceus]

Thanks, doc05, but looking for experienced responses, not opinion. No, you're not gonna see a lot of it on wards, I agree. Maybe more of it in ENT, i don't know.

 

[Megalofyia]

Hi
I have formally been taking sign for a little over a year now. But have informally been trying to learn sign for a couple of years. You will be amazed at how quickly you can become fairly decent at it. I feel that I could easily do a physical in sign with out an inturperter.

My first semester taking sign I did ALOT with the deaf community. Going to ASL night, deaf bowling, etc activities in my area.

I now have many deaf friends that I hang out regularly with.

More than goign to class and doing the homework I have learned the MOST by just hanging out with deaf people and interacting with them.

I think the hardest part of ASL is getting the grammar down. It doesn't help that my deaf friends have a tendency to try and be polite and don't correct me.

There is a sign book for medical terminology, but really when you look at the signs in the book alot of it will become common sense.

I know a neurologist who has deaf patients, as well as a developemental pediatrician who has deaf patients who sign as well as hearing patients that for whatever reason rely on sign to communicate. For both of them knowing sign has been very benificial.

Lastly, I am a very visual person and have found sign alot easier to learn than spanish.

 

[Nightengale]

I'm a first year medical student and I've been studying ASL off and on over the last six years. It was hard to find classes in rural Delaware, but I finally took ASL 3 about a year ago in a non-credit course.

You asked a bunch of questions; let me try to give you some answers.

Right now I am taking a Medical Spanish course offered here at Jefferson, and after that is over a classmate and I would like to start a Medical ASL class. Neither she nor I are ready to teach it yet, though, so we may have to go hunting for an instructor.

ASL versus other languages - I studied Latin and French in high school and picked them up easily. I tried Greek in college and it was a disaster. I have not been finding signs very difficult to learn, as individual words. The grammer is harder for me. I have read the "rules" but my ASL 1 teacher was only able to give us the baisics and my ASL2 teacher only did vocab drill so I still have trouble with word order, tenses, and placing concepts in space.

Fluency - I am not yet fluent. I could communicate effectively with my ASL3 teacher who was Deaf, and adequately with some of her friends and other Deaf community members that I met, but I wouldn't call it fluent. I would not want to try to have an extended conversation on something important (like taking someone's medical history) without an interpreter. I have as a goal to be fluent by the time I graduate from medical school. However, even if you are not fluent, many people in the Deaf community would appreciate your ability to greet them in their own language

Practice/experience - Right after my ASL1 class I worked as a councelor at a camp for kids with physical and developmental disabilities. Some were Deaf, and some others used functional sign as a way to communicate. In my years between classes, I practice a lot by myself. I have a really big dictionary. One thing I do is try to sign the words to songs I listen to. It's good for vocabulary, not so good for grammer. Once I start signing, I tend to forget to stop.

I was thrilled to see a mention of signing being useful for developmental pediatrics. That's exactly what I want to do!

I've rambled a lot, sorry. This is a really important topic for me and one that a lot of medical students don't seem to know too much about. If you have other questions about my (unfortunately limited) experiences or just want to talk about ASL, I'll be here.

Nightengale

 

[Soleil9]

I've been thinking about learning ASL as well. I am applying for Med school admissions for next fall, So I was thinking about taking classes this summer at our Community College. However, I also was thinking of taking spanish... I already speak French (almost) fluently, so I'm debating between ASL and Spanish. I'm guessing that Spanish would be more practical, but would it be harder to learn over the summer (taking intensive immersion course in Mexico)?

What do you all think?

 

[rotatores]

You should really consider the danger involved in thinking that you can quickly pick up ASL and apply it to your patients. I took ASL throughout undergrad and still have yet to come close to mastering the language. I also have deaf relatives so I'm familiar with the deaf community. As a previous poster mentioned...it WOULD be possible to take a physical exam on a deaf patient with little or no ASL but to take a thorough HPI or PMH would be extremely difficult. And to treat a patient based on what you think is the underlying problem without the help of an interpreter would be pretty arrogant.

I don't mean to come off as a jerk but after being exposed to the deaf community for a while and having deaf friends I get a little ticked off when people want to take a few classes and magically sign fluently.

My best advice would be to get involved with the deaf community as you're learning. I promise they will be patient with you and they will be delighted that you are learning to sign.

ENS Rotatores

 

[Megalofyia]

I hope you didn't think that after just one class I thought I could deal medically with a deaf patient. After my first class I was happy with the amount I had learned.

I am comfortable signing now considering I have spent a considerable amount of time practicing and being involved in the deaf community.

Consider that if you have the time it only takes about two years to become a sign inturperter.

 

[evescadeceus]

Thank you all for the feedback. Nightengale n rotatores, you both mention a number of good points. Exposure is key. I'm going to my first Silent Weekend next weekend. This is going to be fairly intimidating, since i have about 150 signs to my name, but i'm hoping folks'll be gentle with me. Soleil9, I'm conversant in French (two years of using the language every day in Peace Corps) and have found that it is now much easier to learn Spanish. If you have the opportunity to do a Spanish immersion in the summer, you could probably acquire some ASL exposure during the school year.

Megalofyia is right - it does only take two years to become an interpreter. And I gather that some of them are not fluent in ASL but must acquire it somehow as they go, while others have years of sign behind them before taking the interpreting classes. Not to pick on you or sound snotty, megalo, but you have got to learn how to spell interpreter.

Anyway, i think its really cool that med students can get the exposure while in medschool - this is encouraging.

 

[Nightengale]

I'm curious where people are getting their "2 years to become an interpreter" figure from. My ASL 2 teacher, herself an interpreter, had told us that interpreter training was typically 2 years AFTER one has become fluent in the language, which she said was also typically about 2 years. Maybe that was peculiar to Maryland?

For a very long time, anyone could declare themselves an interpreter, even after taking a 10 week ASL 1 course where typically a few hundred signs are taught. Now most states (or is it federal; I'm not sure) require certification. In addition to ASL fluency, interpreters should be trained in a code of ethics for confidentiality and so forth.

At the mall with my ASL 3 teacher one time, she spotted her daughter's pediatrician. I asked if that doctor knew any sign - she did not (although my teacher's own doctor knew some.) Apparently when she brought her daughter in for a check-up, the office hired an interpreter, but if she came in for a sick visit, they ended up writing notes back and forth. Not quite the ideal in doctor-patient communication!

As far as exposure, Spanish is, of course, the most common language used in the US after English, and in some parts of the country it is heard much more than English. ASL is the third most common non-English language in the US. So there are a lot of ASL users out there too!

Because I speficially want to work with children with disabilities, I am trying to become fluent in ASL while contenting myself with enough Medical Spanish to be able to get by. Everyone, of course, has their own priorities.

Yay! So excited to hear other medical students and applicants becomming knowledgable about signing!

Evescadeceus - enjoy your Silent Weekend. Make sure you learn to sign that you are a beginner, and people should be "gentle" with you - they have been so with me.

Nightengale

 

[Megalofyia]

CIT program

There is a link to a interperter program that is two years in length.

Sorry I didn't spell interperter correctly. I am dyslexic and since there isn't a spell check on this program it does make it more difficult for me.

I do tend to run words by that I think I have spelled wrong through a word processing program's spell check but that isn't always available to me depending on the computer I am using.

 

[rotatores]

Megalofyia,

Did you even read the link you sent us? The two year program is AFTER you've completed about 1-2 yrs of college level(or equivalent) ASL.

best of luck