Inside the Little Plastic Castle

It's certainly been my experience that there are too many doctors who don't actually care if communication happens. There's a particular doctor who, when I ask him to restate something due to his mumbling or other lack of clarity, says the same thing plus about two more sentences. This launches us into a vicious circle where my interpreting gets further and further behind. And he doesn't understand how to pause between sentences, and then he gets impatient with me for taking so long. And he doesn't wait for me to finish translating what the patient has said; if the patient asks two questions, he starts right in answering the first one after I've finished relaying it. I refuse to work with him.

Another example: I was working on a homecare visit with a nurse who asked the patient how she was feeling. The patient proceeded to go on and on and talk at length, and go on many tangents. (She was fairly old, and possibly very lonely.) I diligently translated the entire thing. The nurse kept on asking open-ended questions that resulted in very long answers, and got frustrated -- with me. She eventually told me to stop saying everything the patient said. "Um, lady, you don't understand my role, do you?" thought I.

And then there are the hordes of providers who refuse to talk to the patients... They always use third person and talk only to me, as if the patient wasn't there. But that's another headache...