January 22, 2009
Lost in translation
Imagine a family member is in the intensive care unit and you are about to have a conference with the doctor. How would that conference be different if you were a person with limited English proficiency?
That is the question asked by Case Center for Reducing Health Disparities faculty member J. Daryl Thornton, MD, MPH.
In this month's Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Thornton and his team report that when a family conference involving the withdrawing of life support or bad news needed to be translated, the clinician spoke less.
In non-translated conferences clinicians spoke for an average of 19.6 minutes while during translated conferences clinicians spoke for an average of 10.9 minutes. Interpreters spoke on average 7.9 minutes during the interpreted meetings.
Additionally, in those family conferences that were not translated clinicians offered more emotional support via verbal cues.
In an accompanying editorial (from which the title of this post is taken), Mark D. Siegel, MD, FCCP, writes that prior to family conferences doctors should meet with interpreters not only to discuss the content of the meeting, but to make sure the conference applies the same standards that are used with English speaking families.
Posted by Staff at 09:11 AM
Category: About Us; Cultural competency; Linguistic Competency; emergency care; interpreter advocates