Explore the ethical, educational, and safety implications of this common expectation in health care.
2024-11-07
Blog
You’ve just started your medical internship and you're now excited to help real patients in real-world settings. But as a multilingual, you quickly realise that you often have to help your colleagues interpret in their patient conversations. You gladly do it, but you can’t help to think about the integrity of the patient, your knowledge of interpreting medical jargon and your split focus between being a medical student and being a translator.
Sadly, this occurrence is far too common.
The Swedish Medical Association's publication has previously reported that their student faction describes how medical students are asked to act as interpreters if they are multilingual. A solution that is far from scalable and not medically quality assured.
"To speak a language and to interpret medical terms correctly are two different things, and it’s harder to learn if the student also has to focus on interpretation," says Sofia Bruce, medical student in Linköping.
Students had, ahead of their internships, been asked what languages they spoke and interpreters had been canceled because the students were expected to translate instead.
“I think it’s very strange to ask that of a student. It’s unsafe for patients and it affects the student's education negatively. It’s worse for both parties.” says Sofia Bruce.
At the same time, we know that relatives and other healthcare professionals are also used as interpreters in health care. A solution that is also not preferable.
Using relatives as interpreters for example breaches confidentiality, lacks neutrality and can lead to misunderstandings and inaccurate interpretations. And using other healthcare professionals, as with medical students, takes away resources that are needed elsewhere and wrongly relies on the doctor’s or nurse’s knowledge of interpreting medical jargon.
So what can be done when the interpreter is hard to reach, before the interpreter arrives or in situations when you just can't get access to an interpreter?
Care to Translate was created when our co-founder, Linus Kullänger, was studying to become a doctor. He realized that many of his patients spoke Arabic and were not able to communicate well in Swedish or English. And as a junior doctor, he did not have access to interpreters in all situations, so he was looking for other solutions to overcome these language barriers.
Linus began by writing Arabic phrases on a paper because he wanted to be able to communicate with his patients. These notes became too many and too difficult to handle, so with some help, an app was created. The app gained traction and spread organically - the need was simply substantial. One thing led to another, and today the content of the app has grown into a big phrase library, including necessary phrases for several healthcare areas in 46 different languages.
You as a healthcare professional, a medical student or an entire organization, can use it to solve language barriers with patients. Download the app for free or try it out here.
Want to learn how the app can be tailored to your organization or school? Book a demo here.
