- Hey guys, welcome to another episode
of the Wednesday Checkup.
Today, we're gonna be talking about a viral video
that I saw on Twitter this weekend.
It brought some strong emotions out of me,
and I wanted to discuss it with you.
(energetic music)
A mother and a grandmother go to a cardiologist's office
in San Bernardino.
The mother is translating for the grandmother,
and the doctor says something along the lines of,
"You should really know how to speak English,"
to the grandmother.
Then the cell phone video starts recording,
so here, take a look.
- [Mother] This is ridiculous. Let's go.
- [Doctor] Fine. You can go.
- [Mother] Yes, well I cannot believe (mumbles)
- [Mother] Call, let them know...
- [Doctor] It won't bother me a bit.
- [Mother] That you are so offensive.
- [Doctor] I'm not offensive.
- [Mother] You don't need to get into if she speaks...
- [Doctor] I'm not offensive.
I am an American.
- [Mother] So what?
- [Doctor] Born here.
- [Mother] I'm right here to translate
for her.
You don't need to do nothing but to tell me
what's wrong with her, if she's okay, if she's not.
Then I'll translate to my mother.
You don't need to tell me that she needs to learn English
so you can communicate.
Communicate through me, and I'll let her know.
- [Doctor] It's not the same.
- [Mother] It doesn't matter!
- [Doctor] Yes, it does matter.
It's not the same.
- [Mother] He is so stupid!
I'm right here to translate for my mother,
and he's telling her that to be in his care,
she needs to learn English.
What the fuck is that?
(Grandmother speaks in Spanish)
You're making my mother cry.
Really?
- That was hard to watch.
And this really resonates with me
because I was an immigrant.
I didn't speak English when I first came to America,
and I was mistreated at times for not knowing the language.
On top of that, I care deeply for my patients
in my hospital, and many of them are Hispanic
and don't speak English as their first language.
The last thing that they need is another barrier
to getting quality health care.
I watched the video a few times over,
and I couldn't really get a good idea
of what happened prior to the video recording,
but I dug a little deeper and found on Twitter
the granddaughter actually wrote what happened.
Doctor walked in, Grandma asked if he spoke Spanish.
He said, "Why should I? You came here."
My mom said she'll translate.
This comment was ignored.
Then he asked, how long has she been here.
My mom says, "Over 45 years."
He then says, "And you don't speak English?"
My mom responds, "She never had to go,
"no one ever had an issue with it,
"plus I go with my mom everywhere she needs to be.
"I translate."
Then he says, "Roosevelt said, if you don't speak English,
"go home."
So my mom responds, "Okay, you know what?
What does that have to do with her health?"
He says, "Nothing.
"She's been in this country.
"She should know English."
So my mom starts getting heated.
That's when I start recording.
The video does tell only one side of the story.
I've tried looking to see if the doctor
or the hospital system made a statement,
but I couldn't find anything online.
I did speak to Angie, who actually recorded the video
and posted it to Twitter.
She gave us the rights to use this video.
She even gave us some information
that administration wasn't really helping her grandmother
or her mother.
On top of that, the most unfortunate part of all this
is that her grandmother did not get the medical care
that she needed!
Now, let's talk about what, ideally, should happen
in the case that someone comes to a medical office
and speaks a foreign language.
Let's use my office as an example.
If a patient comes in, speaks a different language
than myself, it's my responsibility
to offer them an interpreter,
whether that means an interpreter phone, an iPad video chat,
or an in-person interpreter.
If the patient prefers to have a family member translate,
and this happens, that's their right,
and I will go with that.
That being said, it's not the most ideal
to have a family member translate
because what I find often happens is
that the family member has some sort of bias,
not in a bad way, but just has some sort of bias
about what's going on, about what the patient may understand
or not understand, and sometimes words get mistranslated.
They may not be fully trained to translate medical terms,
but if my patients want that, and they're comfortable,
and I have a good relationship with them,
I'm totally fine, and we can make that happen.
This is not what happened here.
This doctor came into a situation
where the family member was active,
interested in helping the situation,
interested in helping the doctor,
and somehow, there was this level of,
I hesitate to say,
narcissism, but it's really this
I'm Greater Than You mentality.
It goes against everything that we're trained to do.
When we take the Hippocratic Oath,
we're trained to help all people.
Doesn't matter what country they're from.
It doesn't matter their criminal status,
what sex they are.
Our job is to help people.
I think this brings up a really good point
for us to discuss why diversity is so important
within the field of health care.
When you come from a similar background as the patient,
you actually have better outcomes.
This has been talked about and proven
in some studies in the past.
When I've worked in, for example, Coney Island Hospital,
during my third year internal medicine rotations,
I saw some of the specialists talk
to the Russian-speaking patients,
and I saw there was a gap.
There was a gap in that culture,
and that gap in that culture broke
down the doctor-patient relationship
to the point where even though
the doctor was giving great advice, great treatment options,
the patient wasn't quite getting it.
So what I was able to do
because I spoke the language,
because I have a Russian background,
I was able to come in, fill that gap,
allow the patients to understand
where the doctor was coming from, weigh those options,
and really fostered a healthy line of communication.
So for me, I'm a huge supporter of increasing diversity
within the field of health care.
It's only gonna serve to benefit our patients.
I recently even made a donation
from Limitless Tomorrow to STFM,
which is the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.
They have a fund for underrepresented minorities
in medicine.
Ultimately, it's so unfortunate that the doctor had
to go about this in such an insensitive manner.
And I think that the patient would benefit
from learning the English language,
not only with dealing with the health care system,
or the voting system, it probably would benefit her,
and perhaps he could have motivated her to do that,
or given her some options of ways to do that,
but just to come in with a judgmental tone,
say those things, not deliver any health care,
you're not helping anybody.
Now, I'm proud to say I work at Overlook Medical Center,
where we see a lot of Spanish-speaking patients
and even other languages.
We have an interpreter system online.
We even have a charity care system
that allows for patients to get low cost,
or even sometimes free health care without any insurance.
Just because our hospital is a non-for-profit system,
that allows for this to happen.
I'm proud to work there, and I'm proud
to take care of an immigrant population.
I know what it's like.
It's not easy; it's a difficult road coming
to a new country,
and anything that doctors can do to help,
they really should.
Thanks for watching, guys.
I know this isn't the typical video
that we do for Wednesday Checkup,
but it brought up some emotions in me,
and I wanted to share it with you.
Special thanks to Angie and her grandmother
for going through this regrettable experience
and still allowing us to not only learn from it,
but also to emphasize the need of diversity
within healthcare.
As always, stay happy and healthy.
(energetic music)