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A word about ESLs - veryoldMT

Posted: Jul 17, 2011

I know everyone complains about ESL dictators - I do also, and have been to the point of tearing my hair out at times. I always try to stop and remember that we need to give them the same respect we give English speaking physicians. The foreign docs have come here to make a better life for themselves, and also to fill some pretty big gaps in health care coverage for both larger and smaller hospitals.

What if we tried to communicate with them in - Hindi, German/Eastern European, Arabic, or Swahili - how would we do?

I'll get off my soapbox now.

Sorry, but I expect - my health care providers

[ In Reply To ..]
to speak, read, write and comprehend English at least as well as I do, otherwise how can I trust them?

As far as gaps, what kind of health care systems are they leaving behind in Africa, Asia or the middle east? I would imagine those countries need doctors as much if not more than we do.

What I do - tired MT

[ In Reply To ..]
The fact of the matter is there will always be ESL doctors and if cannot expect them to speak English well, even the English-speaking doctors do not do a very good job of speaking a lot of the time. Anyway, what I have started doing, thankfully only one ESL doctor on my account, is when I know a word he says for sure, I keep a sheet of how he pronounces certain letters, example GR sounds like H. That way when he stumps me, I can go back and it does help me figure out what he might be saying. Good luck, wish we could just ask them to speak better, but truth is we have to take the bad with the good and if we do not want to do it, there is always someone very willing to take your place.

Your health care providers - Angelina

[ In Reply To ..]
I am with you. This is America and I expect my care providers to speak English-- and speak it well. If I want my H&P to be done in other languages, I will move to those countries. Planes leave every day. The American health care system is being ruined by physicians who can barely pass the Foreign Medical Gradutes Exam, while at the same time American grads of American universities cannot afford to practice. Why has this situation been allowed to develop and exist? Ask one huge hospital chain I worked for in Baltimore. The Middle Eastern and Indian docs (most of whom mangled the English language) would work for roughly a third of the wages of American docs so they came here by the boatload. The language situation got so bad that the hospital actually hired a speech therapist to try to help the foreign docs. This is a true story, which was carried several years ago by the Baltimore Sun.

Also - sm

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Our government gives foreigners better opportunities in education and business than we get by living here in this country.

I like your post - and agree

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Frankly, I'm tired of hearing from MTs who equate having an accent with being unintelligent.

An accent is an accent.

I have some very challening Americans that take me an inordinate amount of time to transcribe.

Speaking your thoughts aloud is a skill that some dictator lack, unfortunately.

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