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Medicine in mother tongues!
This week saw me having a rare opportunity to use my native tongue on the wards.... as a fluent welsh speaker I always enjoy skeaking Welsh where and when I can. Down in West and and Up North much more of the patients and staff speak welsh day in day out, not so in the valleys..... An elderly lady had been admitted with confusion and diagnosed with delerium secondary to UTI.... as we know the golden rules of treatment involve creating calm enviornments, limiting complexities and having familier people close by.. Language must be included in this. We talked of old welsh tales, esiteddfods and the miners strike in Welsh. We also got a lot more history by using welsh than the prebious attempts in what was almost a foreign language to this lady.
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As an Australian, I use my mother tongue which arose as the British narrowly beat the French to real estate here in 1788.
However, as a francophone (from my schooling) it gives me great pleasure to be able to talk to a patient in French, and as we have a large Greek population, I am learning Greek.
However, there are very few Australian-born doctors who have a second language despite the fact that we are arguably one of the most multicultural countries in the world with over 100 language groups. Over half the population was not born here.
I have found great benefit is reading French journals which I regard very highly. I now get the Greek bilingual thoracic journal, PNEUMON which has excellent articles. I get a great thrill when I publish in a foreign language.
We have also wiped out several hundred aboriginal languages alas and many aboriginal people are still using their own tongue.
What I am getting to, is there is great benefit in using languages other than English. So go for it Dai.
I hope that will also evolve with time but it will take many decades to come for sure!
Best wishes,
mati