A Fair Interpretation

A patient who doesn't speak English lies in bed, looking up at doctors who don't speak Spanish, who point their fingers at the patient's body, chest, belly, and ask the only question they can: "tienes dolor?" We've all seen this, more or less. Yes or no--that's the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association 2017-12, Vol.318 (22), p.2183-2183
Main Author: DeForest, Anna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cores
Hematology
Interpreters
Language
Medical instruments
Medical personnel
Patients
Physician patient relationships
Physicians
Tongue
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:A patient who doesn't speak English lies in bed, looking up at doctors who don't speak Spanish, who point their fingers at the patient's body, chest, belly, and ask the only question they can: "tienes dolor?" We've all seen this, more or less. Yes or no--that's the entire story this patient is allowed to tell. No, lo siento, I'm not here to argue for the use of medical interpreters--hopefully your moral compass argues for that on its own. I'm arguing for something else. Strangely, physicians, who earn their positions via great capacities for remembering trivial information, struggle to recall that the people hired by hospitals to convey language in live-action from one tongue to another are called medical interpreters. Of course, it's clear what these misspoken doctors mean, but it's hard to imagine the same who cores huff if someone called a PICC line a central venous catheter, or confused hematology with phlebotomy. Words mean things.
ISSN:0098-7484
1538-3598
DOI:10.1001/jama.2017.17563