Teaching Medical Spanish on the Surgery Clerkship: A Response to the Increased Demand for Spanish Proficiency Among Physicians

Flores et al. demonstrated that the largest barrier to health care among Latino patients involved language-related issues.1 Many parents in that study noted that the lack of Spanishspeaking medical staff led to adverse events for thenchildren such as misdiagnosis and inappropriately prescribed medic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American surgeon 2011-12, Vol.77 (12), p.1715-1717
Main Authors: COPELAND, Hannah, JONES, Michael, ANTONIO DURAN, Marco, SOZANSKI, Jesse, POSKUS, Diane, BEITA, Oscar, ADAMAS-RAPPAPORT, William Joaquin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bilingualism
Biological and medical sciences
Clinical Clerkship - methods
Colleges & universities
Communication Barriers
Emergency medical care
General aspects
General Surgery - education
Health participants
Hispanic Americans
Human subjects
Humans
Interpreters
Language
Likert scale
Medical sciences
Pain
Patient satisfaction
Physicians - standards
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Surgery
Teaching - methods
United States
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Summary:Flores et al. demonstrated that the largest barrier to health care among Latino patients involved language-related issues.1 Many parents in that study noted that the lack of Spanishspeaking medical staff led to adverse events for thenchildren such as misdiagnosis and inappropriately prescribed medications. [...] Elderkin-Thompson et al. noted that when nurses also perform the job of a medical interpreter, almost 50 per cent of the interactions demonstrated a miscommunication because: 1 the nurse provided the physician only with data corresponding to the expected diagnosis; 2 the nurse's interpretation was skewed; or 3 patients used an idiomatic phrase that was improperly translated.3 Often nursing staff is unavailable and family members are used as interpreters compounding the problem of miscommunication.
ISSN:0003-1348
1555-9823