Not being able to speak a foreign language

[GrammCracker]

What do you do during your rotations if you can't speak a foreign language, but most of your patients speak it? My school has us rotate at a particular community hospital and a few clinics where the majority of the patients speak either Spanish or Chinese. Are we not assigned to those patients that we can't understand? I wonder if this is possible because a bunch of us did a preceptorship at that community hospital last year and the preceptors really struggled finding patients that spoke English for us in order to interview and perform physical exams. So I wonder if there will be enough patients for us all when we do rotations.

I know that the hospital has translators but I don't think they'll tag along with us.

My school had a subpar medical Spanish program and I know nothing about Chinese so I'm getting a little anxious about doing rotations at those places.

Thanks in advance!

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[Teej]

If you don't want to use the translation service or don't think they'll stay with you during a physical, you could always try speaking very loudly and slowly in English. That seemed to work for colonial England.

Seriously though, the translators should go with you because that's their job.

 

[Ashers]

They're not "translators" they're "interpreters" as I got a 5 minute lecture by an "interpreter" this year for referring to her as the "translator." She was ticked off too, she glared at me the whole time. I didn't even need her there, but the clinic gets, (ah heck, who cares) translators for all non-English speakers.

Anyway, use the interpreters or the blue phones.

At my hospital, they'll keep the blue phone in the patient's room if there isn't a shortage, and they work much faster than the translators because you don't have to wait for them, especially for rounds in the morning. You may be able to use other students. On OB/gyn, I was the unofficial morning rounds translator, or I just got assigned all the Spanish speaking patients.

 

[Acherona]

Be resourceful. Find a relative or nurse that speaks the language. Call home if necessary to speak with a relative. Often the patient knows some English and you can get the important questions answered. Use lots of gesturing. If you really can't get a history, you may need to rely more on old charts, nursing notes to see what's been going on. This is like any patient that gives a bad history or is out of it.