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Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

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Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#31

Post by LAC-Tech »

atdrummond wrote: post #19
LAC-Tech wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering they were using google translate, I assume they meant Taiwanese Mandarin. Though usually when I hear taiwanese as a language in english it's tai-gi.

I was doing some research on Hokkien in general the other day and that's when I noticed some using the endonym Taigu instead. I'm not sure what the difference, if any, is.

I've only heard 'gi', but it looks like alternate pronunciations[0].

I've only really dabbled in the language, but I quickly got the impression it's not exactly standardised. Even something as simple as 'I' seems to have two pronunciations (gua and wa).

[0] https://www.mkdict.net/results?query=%E8%AA%9E+&page=1&q_typ...

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#32

Post by slackfan »

brianwawok wrote: post #24
slackfan wrote: post #3

There has been a better option for a long time, called on-staff Medical Interpreters. In fact, my spouse worked as one for approximately seven years. Unfortunately due to hospitals consolidating into medical networks and cutting costs wherever they could, this went from on-staff interpreters, to contract interpreters, to on-call phone interpreters (works incredibly poorly), to google translate. Blame the beurocrats r…

> By 2028, it is expected that health care spending in the U.S. will reach nearly one fifth of the nation's gross domestic product It is a balance of features vs price. Right now, we need to do absolutely everything we can to keep the price of medical care as low as possible. In the US it might make sense for most hospitals to have people on staff for Spanish. I don't think we as a country can afford 270 other langua…

Bluntly speaking, this is not a problem that tech can solve. Because nothing, no video calls, no vr, no phone calls, can replace an on-site professional. There are approximately top 10 languages you want to have staff for, and then the rest can be handled by contractors. But you have to remember that most "staff" are actually 1099 contractors now because they can be paid submarket wages that way.

Thanks, monopolies.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#33

Post by nradov »

slackfan wrote: post #3

There has been a better option for a long time, called on-staff Medical Interpreters. In fact, my spouse worked as one for approximately seven years. Unfortunately due to hospitals consolidating into medical networks and cutting costs wherever they could, this went from on-staff interpreters, to contract interpreters, to on-call phone interpreters (works incredibly poorly), to google translate. Blame the beurocrats r…

Medicare and most private insurers will pay for medical translation or interpretation services when necessary. It's HCPCS billing code T1013. Generally hospitals would make a small gross profit on it, so I'm puzzled why they would eliminate those positions if there is enough demand to keep them busy.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#34

Post by paxys »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #25

Is no one going to address the elephant in the room? If you're in a country where the lingua franca is X, you need to be able to speak X or life will be difficult. I'm not sure why the onus is on every hospital to become a kind of mini united nations here.

Tourism (including medical tourism) is a thing, as is telemedicine. In general, doctors and hospitals aren't in the business of turning away people just because they speak the "wrong" language.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#35

Post by munk-a »

throwawayboise wrote: post #23
munk-a wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My SO had to seek medical attention in rural southern France (we were visiting Carcassone) - she initially sought care at the local emerg where there was not a translator available, she speaks high-school french but most of the conversation was carried out through miming and charades. A few days later, as instructed, she followed up with a local clinic where she prepared a written version of her condition and brought…

> I think it's reasonable to rely on tools like Google Translate, it sucks but full language coverage isn't reasonable. Far better than what was possible before, when as a tourist you maybe had a phrasebook or something similar. This is part of the risk of travel into an area where you don't know the language. Also if you are going to permanently move to such a place, it's incumbent on you to become functionally flue…

> Also if you are going to permanently move to such a place, it's incumbent on you to become functionally fluent in the local language. Nobody there owes you a special accomodation.

Functional fluency doesn't really cover hospital interactions though, right? I can live for decades in Paris without knowing what the word for chest pains or sprained ankle are.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#36

Post by atdrummond »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #31
atdrummond wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was doing some research on Hokkien in general the other day and that's when I noticed some using the endonym Taigu instead. I'm not sure what the difference, if any, is.

I've only heard 'gi', but it looks like alternate pronunciations[0]. I've only really dabbled in the language, but I quickly got the impression it's not exactly standardised. Even something as simple as 'I' seems to have two pronunciations (gua and wa). [0] https://www.mkdict.net/results?query=%E8%AA%9E+&page=1&q_typ...

Ah, now that you've highlighted the specific pronunciation divergence the two separate transliterations now make sense. I really appreciate the reply, given the relatively low stakes here.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#37

Post by jka »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #25

Is no one going to address the elephant in the room? If you're in a country where the lingua franca is X, you need to be able to speak X or life will be difficult. I'm not sure why the onus is on every hospital to become a kind of mini united nations here.

People travel recreationally, for business, and sometimes out of necessity to places where they don't speak the local language - perhaps you, friends, or family have, or will in future, experience those kinds of travel.

Medical emergencies (or, to be honest, routine medical care) can be required for anyone, anywhere, for no particular reason. Care workers are no doubt familiar with that.

For people to want to improve the situation for hospitals doesn't seem bad if it's possible. Do you think that we cannot achieve better?

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#38

Post by BaronVonSteuben »

atdrummond wrote: post #17
freedomben wrote: post #2

I can't imagine being a patient in pain trying to communicate that to a doctor who didn't speak the same language, especially when the pain was due to a different issue (as the article describes). The pendulum has fully swung from "pain is a vital sign" to "suck it up" and "anyone who complains about pain is a liar or a drug seeker unless they're older than 65 or have a visible external wound."[1] It's difficult even…

It has become an absolute joke. I have had 6 surgeries for Crohns, a back surgery due to wear and tear from high level athletics, and am a long term sufferer of an aggressive leukaemia. Despite using opioids responsibly for over a decade, I am regarded as nothing more than a drug seeking pest the very few times I have actively sought pain relief during in-patient hospital stays. Prior to being dropped entirely from m…

Yep, absolutely. My doctor of 10+ years recently retired, leaving me in search of a new doc. I've been managing my pain for 15+ years just fine with 10mg Hydrocodone. In 15 years I only once asked to increase the dose, and it was only from two pills per day to three to help me get through the afternoon/evening better. A minuscule dose.

After doing "new patient" appointments (which by the way were like $200 to $300 each) and not having a doc willing to take me on as a patient unless I dropped the opioids, and making several calls (who refused to tell me over the phone whether the doctor was even open to controlled substances without that $300 "new patient" appointment) I gave up. Since coming off the opioids my quality of life has plunged. I struggle with depression and thoughts of suicide now, especially when I'm unable to leave the house or my bed. I went from stable and productive and what doctors used to say is the model patient, to being miserable. Every doc has offered to give me additional antidepressants or crank up the doses of those, but none are willing to treat the pain that is exacerbating it.

I absolutely believe that what the medical establishment is doing to people like us (withholding treatment that we know works) is cruel and borders on torture. It is the epitome of taking macro-level stats and explanations and applying them broadly on the micro-level, regardless of the harm caused.

I believe Hippocrates would be rolling over in his grave to hear that these people took an oath to "do no harm."

For the record. I mostly don't blame the doctors. They are protecting their medical licenses, which the DEA and FDA have proven they are willing to revoke over the slightest anomaly. When the feds started throwing pain specialists in federal prison because some tiny percent of their patients were abusers, it really drove home that individual doctors are not allowed to think anymore. You implement government policy, or you risk financial ruin and even jail time. I don't blame them for being cowards. I probably wouldn't risk imprisonment on a stranger either.

Re: Doctors who use Google Translate to talk to patients want a better option

#40

Post by atdrummond »

I and some others in the healthcare/healthcare tech spaces volunteered to create a discharge templating system for many of the top non-English and non-Spanish languages used in the United States - specifically the top languages in the Northwest to start. Our offering utilized data from, and would have been integrated with, an EMR whose name means "particularly impressive" even if their response was anything but. After openly communicating our plans with this firm for many, many months (over two years for some of us) we were informed right before our intended trial that we would be denied from providing our services to the patients (and their providers) who truly needed it. We were never given a reason and I've not seen any product released by this firm in the interim to make me think we were potential competition to any part of their EMR suite.

It was a truly perplexing and depressing outcome. Worse, as some of our team hadn't yet had their sense of possibility and belief in the US medical system destroyed, I saw first hand a number of talented persons simply walk away from doing any work in health or healthcare tech. It was a double blow that went beyond just the loss of the software that was being created; people who otherwise would have dedicated their lives to improving patient outcomes instead went elsewhere with their careers or volunteering lives.

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