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I can't understand my patient's language!

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Diagnostic:
Did that happen to you before?
We know that most of us is studying or studied medicine in different countries and it's easy to feel this language barrier especially during clinical rounds & exams, how to communicate with your patients? what will you do if that happen to you? do you think that having your colleague as a translator is enough to take history from your patient?
Diagnostic

Dr.keyf:
olyotya diagnostic.i believe wat ure facing is wat we all face as medical students except the few who r studying in english speaking countries or those who speak the language of their locality.it has been one of my greatest challenges especially coz here in pakistan patients have several different languages as they hail frm different provinces.but hey,we hv to tackle this problem in any way we can.for example,u get a friend who speaks the language,n initially theyll translate for u,then write down all history points on a rough pad n write down all translations next to it.then daily try to practice by using ur rough pad as ur referrence.as time goes by,u get used to these words n when u think of fever or cough or watever ,the questions spring to mind.its exactly how we memorize the history n gpe steps in english.do tht for a while n ull be an expert even just after a year.hope tht helps

Admin:
Thanks diagnostic for this topic..

Yes, this happened to me before, & I can't forget it till now..

I had an Internal Medicine exam 3 years back when I was given a long case about a young man from southern sudan.

Southern sudanese people don't speak arabic especially those who arrived recently from there & they are the most difficult people to communicate with..

The worst thing that I found was that he was drunk with no co-patient. The patient next to him told me that policemen brought him in last night and they have left.

I was really shocked that time, because how can I take history from a person who is drunk and who can only speak his own extinct language.

I went to the boss in charge and told him what I have seen, he asked me this question: "If this man comes to your clinic, how are you going to act?" I replied: "I will sort something out...".

Then he replied mockingly: "Ok, go then and sort it.."

I went back to my case & I just did only examination then I found out that this guy was sick with TB complicated with pott's disease.
& the patient next to him told me that 2 doctors came this morning and took sputum sample. :D

I went back dragging my legs to the professors to present my case, being sure that I would fail because I did'nt have anything to say about history apart from the examination that I have done in my uncooperative patient.

First I told them that my patient is drunk with no co-patient and he does'nt speak arabic and he is from southern sudan, he asked me: "Then what have you done?".

I replied: "I have done only an examination ???".

He said: "Tell us your findings", I told them in a perfect way, while trying to screen the gap in history.

At last, they congaratulated me saying: "A good doctor is someone who can act in every situation".
dr.keyf, the southern sudanese people speak a different and difficult language than pakistani people, even you can't understand them when they speak arabic.
Their language is not written, when you listen to them, the only thing you can figure out is the letter (dh) so (dha dhi dhu) means something which you can't understand. Beside that they are very rare in universities and therefore you will not find a southern sudanese colleague who can translate for you.
I hope none of you will face such a situation.
Dr.Mahdi

Moha:
it happens u r rite....i once had to take a history from an old guy who came from rural areas of a province called Baluchistan,and he spoke only his local dialect called The Brohi,and we were in another province called Sind ...but the funny thing was none of the people around could speak it...i was so bewildered and amused by the fact that everybody around instantly became like me(a foreigner!),unable to converse with one of their own! they were all Pakistanis basically!...and then one of the ward cleaners told us that he knew a Brohi kiosk owner down the hospital road...off we went to ask the guy to help us translate..it helped...soo at least i learnt few  Brohi words! Naa antaa haalee...(how are u)....khushust(fine)....

Kamal:

in USA is discourage to use family and friends as interpreter, clinic are responsible to provide an interpreters or bilingual staff for the patients, in US insurance pay good money for the medical and legal interpters to do such services, i do understand  some country they do nt have enough money to pay that services, and it is sad if you can nt undersand your patients,
one other thing you can do is  as doctor learn words in as money languages as you can, you wil never know when you will need,
 i know some American doctors do try hard to say some words in Somali... actual i know one eye surgeon Dr who love to talk somali in somali...but they laugh at him...

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