Telling My Story: Alex Pearson

Language is a tool that people use to communicate every single day. Personally, I grew up in a homogenous community in the white suburbs of Minnesota. Neither of my parents speak any other languages; however, my mom made the choice to put my three sisters and I in a Spanish Immersion program. My teachers in this program were from Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Bolivia, Uruguay and México. Each had different styles of teaching or expressions they would use. I often get asked where I learned Spanish because it is so blended. Learning Spanish from such a young age is extremely useful, it allows my brain to be flexible because I was learning English at the same time switching back and forth. My accent was more malleable between languages because I wasn’t yet fluent in English either. The transition when already having learned one language to proficiency is difficult because many sounds and letters are compared when they are very different. Being bilingual is a great skill and I am beginning to understand its value. I recognize that there are a plethora of different languages out there and being simply bilingual isn’t always helpful due to the fact that one can speak two languages out of the hundreds of dialects and languages that people speak.

Working in a hospital in Minnesota, I noticed that there were very few people who spoke a language different from English and if they did, they were discouraged to use it in order to provide “better communication” amongst the healthcare team. Nearly 13 percent of people living in Minnesota speak a different language at home; however when it comes to a hospital or patient care environment, only English is used to provide care (Njeru 2015). The lack of resources and the increasing language diversity creates an enormous responsibility put on the younger generation and family members to communicate with the hospital staff when taking care of a non-english speaking patient. As someone who is bilingual and able to reach a larger population of people through language, this is important to me. Several hospital staff, including my supervisor, were surprised that I spoke another language and never encouraged me to use it.

One experience where I empathize with non-English speakers in the hospital setting is when a family member had just been diagnosed with a life threatening disease and their children were the only people who could speak to them and communicate what was happening. The nurses and doctors kept entering and leaving the room saying difficult medical terminology that they barely understand in their first language, then they have to translate that information to their loved one who is in a lot of pain and has no idea what is happening to them. They are taking time off of school, doing their homework when they can. They are trying to figure out when they can sleep, when they can leave the room to go find something to eat, when they can go get a new change of clothes because if they leave their family member alone for too long, there might be a life changing miscommunication that might go against their family members wishes or end up costing her her life.

From my experience, any language that is not English has been and is seen as less than. When healthcare providers realize that they are unable to verbally communicate with patients who do not speak English, because oftentimes the providers are monolingual English speakers, they do not attempt to communicate with the patient at all. They do not disclose important information or they pass off the responsibility of communication to a different member of the healthcare team. For example, when the physician does not know how to communicate information to the patient, they become frustrated, sometimes visibly. Then they will write the information in the care plan and expect that the nurse or the therapist will communicate with them.

Because the patients who do not speak English are severely misunderstood, they often stop attempting to communicate. They feel discouraged, like no one will understand, no matter what they say. These patients’ care plans and charts are often lacking details because when a care provider would normally ask about symptoms or history there would be an open dialog and reveal necessary information that could aid the healing process. In this case, this puts non-english speakers at a noticeable and significant disadvantage with regards to filling in the gaps in their story for why they are in need of care. The patients neglect their own needs because they do not know how to communicate them in a way that the provider is willing to understand. Previously, video translators have been used. This is when a computer is wheeled into the patient room and a language translator is phoned in to the situation to relay information in front of the care provider to the patient. This is a great option and often underused; however, from a human perspective, when you are being told that you or your family member is being diagnosed with a terminal illness by a computer, it feels insensitive.

I am sharing this narrative in an attempt to normalize multilingualism. The hospital environment is predominantly English speaking in the United States. It felt as if there were de facto English-only policies being practiced. The signs are in English, the staff speaks in English and the patients are expected to speak English in order to be an active participant in their care plan. I was not employed at this hospital long enough to experience a change or modification of language practices. From my experience, language and/or culture training was not a part of the training process at all. Based on my experience, I have been thinking of ways to improve. I believe that moving forward, based on the percentage of people that belong to a certain population that speaks a specific language, that there should be an in person interpreter available. I feel strongly about this because the situation described above has happened on multiple occurrences in the same hospital and other hospitals nationwide, affecting many families.

Policy is difficult and English is the de-facto language of the United States in that most people do speak some English; however, I believe that the stigma of speaking other languages in a healthcare environment should be broken. Moving forward, it is important to understand multilingualism as a broad spectrum. Patients deserve care no matter what language they speak. Due to the fact that there is a higher number of multilingual speakers living in the United States every year, higher quality language services should be provided. Especially in situations where patient safety and lives are at stake. Communication is important all the time but specifically when dealing with health issues. It is vital that miscommunications are avoided in the healthcare setting to aid in a life or death situation.