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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

#61

This article says they used Google Translate for "Taiwanese to English, English to Taiwanese", but Google Translate doesn't list 'Taiwanese' as a language. It does list 'Chinese (Traditional)' and I guess that's what they were using.

Fun fact: Disney movies get separate dubs for Taiwan and for mainland China.

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

#62
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, I doubt you could - 'pain' and it's synonyms, as well as basic body parts like 'chest' are pretty basic words for someone who's spent decades immersed in a language...

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

#63

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. Afte…

My partner has used an EMR called Epic in her work and it, like all EMRs it seems, is trash. Government protections and a moat of network effects, they’re untouchable.

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

#64

This article says they used Google Translate for "Taiwanese to English, English to Taiwanese", but Google Translate doesn't list 'Taiwanese' as a language. It does list 'Chinese (Traditional)' and I guess that's what they were using.

Fun fact: Disney movies get separate dubs for Taiwan and for mainland China.

I'm going to try this next time my son watches a Disney movie, and see if he notices.

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

#65
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry to hear you have this problem. Chronic pain understanding and management is medieval, and seemingly getting worse rather than better over time.

I really appreciate your kind thoughts. Thankfully Vipassana meditation has helped keep me sane in spite of the inane restrictions my doctors have been put under and also just so happens to help reduce the pain to a somewhat more manageable level. It's funny that a lot of the patients most aggressively hurt by simplistic one-size-fits-all reforms like the 90 MME cap are the patients most likely to support, and already be utilizing, integrative medicine. Such patients have been dealing with pain for years, decades often - they're not going to turn down any potential solutions that might help. All they ask is for their doctors to be given the autonomy necessary to prescribe legal, needed medications when called for.

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

#66

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.

Taigu is a Taiwanese-specific dialect of Hokkien. Hokkien is spoken outside Taiwan (e.g. Fujian).

> Hokkien is spoken outside Taiwan (e.g. Fujian).

It would be pretty shocking if that wasn't the case, since Hokkien is spelled 福建.

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

#67
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I’ve lived in a foreign country where I learned the local language and was hospitalised twice during the time I lived there. My vocabulary certainly didn’t contain very much medical vocabulary, and it wasn’t an issue at all. At worst you’re Google translating one or two words, or explaining things in a slightly odd way.

I could certainly say “chest pain” though.

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

#68

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.

Many hospitals advertise internationally and rely on medical tourism of various sorts. You can't expect a 70 year old heart patient flown in from Taiwan to Phoenix to learn English for their surgery.

I think if you're advertising internationally for international patients, it becomes reasonable to expect you to have translators on staff.

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

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: Disney movies get separate dubs for Taiwan and for mainland China.

I'm going to try this next time my son watches a Disney movie, and see if he notices.

If he's already familiar with the movie, he's pretty certain to notice if you switch the version. The song lyrics are completely different.

I tend to feel that the Taiwan lyrics are better, but I'm not a native or even fluent speaker. I'd be interested in native opinions.

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

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ea…

Sorry if i sound blatantly stupid with my question, maybe In your case this could not be a sufficient solution for pain but did you ever tried with something like Marijuana and if it's illegal in you state considered migrating where it's legal? Or even considered to relocate to somewhere where you can get access to proper medication ?
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