http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264329/Doctors-deadly-language-barrier-Failure-ensure-GPs-speak-English-properly-cost-lives-MPs-told.html
Martin writes about doctors in Europe and the difficulty and/or controversy over the language differences between doctors and patients and the country in general. The controversy is over doctors being unable to speak the national language of the country, thus creating communication problems with the patients.
As we had discussed in class before, language plays a large role in communication between two people. Without a common language between two people, it can become very difficult to try and converse or in this situation, tell the doctor what is wrong with the patient. I agree with this part of Martin's argument because especially for doctors, it is very important to be able to communicate with a patient to hear what part of the body is hurting or the other various symptoms that cannot be simply explained or examined by a machine. Miscommunication can be risky to a patient and as said in the article, death may even occur due to lack of correct communication.
However, on the other hand, Martin lightly grazes on this but is it unfair to not hire a doctor because he is not fluent in the common language of a country? A doctor is someone who helps people get better or to figure out what is wrong with them but it doesn't seem fair that they would be limited by language. Of course it is important that they be able to communicate with their patients and maybe language lessons should be encouraged, but should language be such a large component of whether a doctor can be hired or not?
In the end, I think it is very important that a doctor be able to communicate with his patients. From personal experience, it can be very frustrating to talk to a doctor who doesn't necessarily understand what you are trying to tell him and it is very limiting. Therefore, I agree with Martin that language fluency is necessary for a doctor in a foreign country.
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ReplyDeleteHi Chloe--
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post! I think that the issue of language differences between doctors and patients is an important one to discuss. First of all, as you bring up, it can be very frustrating to try to explain an important medical problem to someone who cannot fully understand you. Someone who needs medical assistance, whether urgent or not, should not need to have to deal with this added stress. Furthermore, I think it's interesting to think about whether or not people generally just feel differently about others who do not speak the same language. My prediction (I'm sure there's a lot of research out there on this) is that an English speaker, for example, would rate a doctor who speaks a different language less competent than an English-speaking doctor, even if there were no communication problems between the patient and the non English-speaking doctor. You could also test to see if this theory is consistent with people's implicit attitudes about non English-speaking doctors' competence. Because it is important to be confident in a doctor's abilities, a language barrier could make a difference in the positivity of one's attitude while being treated. Also, I would assume that one would feel less of a personal connection to someone who speaks a different language, which can also play a role in someone's attitude towards a doctor while receiving treatment. Overall, I think that this article raises many important questions and I'm glad that you brought it up!