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I can't understand my patient's language!
Waxbaro!:
We all agreed that communication is the basis of good health care.
Around 80 per cent of the information the doctor needs to make a correct diagnosis comes from what the patient say, understanding your patient's native language is very important.
Sometimes using body language is helpful to overcome this language barrier & I remember a story happened to me when I was working in a hospital located in Somalia.
"Waxaa ii timid islaan somaaliyeed oo wadata cunugeda oo jiran, markaan waraystay waxay ii sheegtay in wiilkeeda uu ka sheeganayo MARWAXAD, waan istaagay oo waxaan damiyay marwaxadda qolka, kadib markaan u soo laabtay oo su'aalo kala weydiiyay ayay iigu soo celisay isla kalmadii, waxaan iri: MARWAXADDA waa maxay? kadib sharax dheer kadib ayaan fahmay in MARWAXADDU ay thaay QUFAC.
So everyone is susceptible to misunderstanding!
Waxbaro!
Diagnostic:
Thank you all.
It seems that most of us had such an experience.
Amazingly it also happened to Waxbaro who works in Somalia. ;D ;D ;D :D
Abdullahi!:
--- Quote from: Waxbaro! on March 26, 2008, 08:41:47 PM ---We all agreed that communication is the basis of good health care.
Around 80 per cent of the information the doctor needs to make a correct diagnosis comes from what the patient say, understanding your patient's native language is very important.
Sometimes using body language is helpful to overcome this language barrier & I remember a story happened to me when I was working in a hospital located in Somalia.
"Waxaa ii timid islaan somaaliyeed oo wadata cunugeda oo jiran, markaan waraystay waxay ii sheegtay in wiilkeeda uu ka sheeganayo MARWAXAD, waan istaagay oo waxaan damiyay marwaxadda qolka, kadib markaan u soo laabtay oo su'aalo kala weydiiyay ayay iigu soo celisay isla kalmadii, waxaan iri: MARWAXADDA waa maxay? kadib sharax dheer kadib ayaan fahmay in MARWAXADDU ay thaay QUFAC.
So everyone is susceptible to misunderstanding!
Waxbaro!
--- End quote ---
If you as a doctor practicing in Somalia experienced difficulties with the language barrier, what about us people who were raised abroad?.
This would be a real pain if we decide to come and work in Somalia.
Yaxya:
don't say that abdulahi it is not pain to work in your homeland,even if you face some diffculties no problem coz u r helping ur ppl.
i my self face this challange few months ago :patient came from baydhabo to the hospital where i work complaing from urine retention.
the prblem was both of us don't understand the other,suddnly one of the secuirty guys enter the room and solve our problem coz he knows both languages.
so even if know somali well u will face such problem.
Dr.Fatima:
Dear colleagues,
Misunderstandings have many degrees and many forms. Even misunderstanding could occur in ones own language, but then u have the opportunity to correct it by asking more direct question. The key is if you have the ability to ask to be understood. I have studied half of my studies in Poland, and this country have language belonging to Slavic Indo-European language. A language group which benefit you if you learn it because you can communicate with Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, West Ukraine, West Belarus, and so on. So it is a huge language group with many million ppl who speaks it. It was obligatory for foreign students to learn and speak it fluently. The first years we had pre-clinical studies and had not much contact with patients, after the 2nd year was clinical years. In the beggining some of the teaching doctors were nice and were able to translate most of the contact we had with patients. The university I was attending was a private university and I had to pay for my tuition fee. Thats why the teachers were obliged to help us in the beginning. But afterwards, the rest was up to us. Poland is a huge country with many villages. Many of the ppl from these villages speak their own dialect. So it was even more challanging for us foreign students. Bodylanguage was helpful in the beginning but later own to ask more deeper and spesific questions things became harder. But I think as long as you become creative and try to solve the problem one way or the other will gain you alot and you will be an extraordinary doctor. So never give up dear colleagues, there is always hope.
Thank you.
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