As a Latina this topic hits home really hard. I for one do not think that physicians in any area of the US should "have" to speak *any* language aside from English. It breaks my heart to realize how much America is trying to "accomodate" for ALL folks moving in. If in the next ten years or more we have a huge influx of let's say Koreans and the map starts changing in some areas should we have to then Korean? this can open a HUGE can of worms. Immigrants that go to any OTHER country HAVE to learn the language that is primarly spoken in that area. I grew up in Spain and ALL folks (Germans,Swiss,French,Italians) that moved to Spain INDEED speak Spanish. Why do we as a country must always have to accomodate ALL cultures/languages that come here AND change the way WE do things? do not get me wrong change to a certain extent IS good to a certain point. I think that we as a country have been more accomodating than any other country in the world!
About legalizing the status of immigrants I think that there is no right answer. If you do legalize their status how will ALL OTHER immigrants (including Hispanics) that had to go through the proper channels to become a US citizen feel? why do some folks have some rules and others do not? why do people outcry in rage when this Kennedy congressman was allowed to go home w/o a sobriety test (which I think is wrong) and he was given another set of rules YET we are "considering" allowing all these immigrants legal status? I mean this is like an oxymoron. I do agree that these folks ARE providing a lot to our country but they ARE here illegally! and as far as I know that is against the law right? I am not condoning deporting this guys en masse for many agricultural areas will be at a great loss of workers but I am also not for just "letting" them have at it and become US citizens like magic for this would be a slap to the face of the many other immigrants that waited their time out.
This country is going to go down the drain slowly but surely IF we keep making concessions for ALL folks that come in here. Do you guys think for ONE minute that we could take our little arses to any other country and DEMAND to have physicians that speak OUR language? demand that business have folks that speak our language? demand that they give us instant citizen status? hell no!

I do prenatal care in an outreach clinic where about half of the pts are probably illegal, and about half of those don't speak much (or any) English. Knowing Spanish certainly helps, and I am drawing on 6 years' worth from 35 years ago. I can get by most of the time, but we have a translator for the tough stuff. Last Friday one of our patients walked in unannounced. She had been diagnosed by ultrasound with a severely malformed baby and had terminated 8 days before. She had made a suicidal geature with a knife the night before but refused to go to the hospital. Her husband wanted me to give her some pills and make her better. No English, of course. In this kind of situation I feel helpless even with a translator. I simply cannot say all the things I want to be able to say to her, and explain that there is no pill that will make her better right now. I tried, but I could tell just by listening to the translator that what I was saying was getting hopelessly lost in the translation. We were able to find her a counselor who spoke fluent Spanish and had time to talk to her in 2 hours (not an easy thing in a town of 9,000 in the middle of a cornfield---and the counselor accepted public aid too!) I resent any suggestion that docs be REQUIRED to learn a foreign language. I have Chinese, Vietnamese, and Yugoslavian patients too. Should I be required to learn multiple languages? I don't know if many of you are aware of this, but as of July 1, patients are going to be required by the federal government to produce a valid US passport or birth certificate to get a public aid card. This is really going to complicate prenatal care in my state, as we currently don't require same, on the premise that these women are carrying future citizens that the state will be responsible for once they are born, and we all know that well-baby care is cheaper if it starts in utero.
I don't have a big gripe against immigrants of any kind (my grandparents and great-grandparents were illegal immigrants who snuck in through Canada). What I do object to is the refusal to assimilate. I have no problems with preserving one's culture, but this brazen attitude that we are going to turn the US into Mexico and the refusal on the part of some to learn even basic English just irks me. I spent 2 weeks in Denmark with my kids a few years back. We quickly learned how to read important signs and learned a few basic words. My nephew was there a year and was practically fluent. Danish is an extremely difficult language to learn. I understand that English is too, but when my grandparents came here, they realized very quickly that you don't dig in your heels and demand that people cater to you in this country. You get off your butt and learn to survive, and that includes learning how to communicate.
Well, those are my random thoughts on immigration.

First, I NEVER said that immigrants shouldn't have to speak English, of course they should but this argument about focusing on English is bogus because the US didn't ALWAYS belong to gringos! So technically, we are ALL here illegally!

And America is FAR from accomadating everyone. When was the last time a boatload of Hatians was allowed in?

And yes, if a HUGE influx of Koreans come to America and YOU want to WORK in that community, what so wrong with learning some Korean? I thought medicne was a career of "always" learning something new. :rolleyes:

And allow me to be clear. I'm speaking of giving citizenship to the folks who are ALREADY here, AND shoring up the borders which is pretty much what I already stated previously.
First things first, lets first take care of those immigrants that could potentially have the biggest impact on both the politics AND economy of our country.

WAAYYY too asinine to respond to! :rolleyes:
Turn into Mexico? You MUST be a republician! :p Excuse me, but what we call Texas once WAS Mexico, so you may want to double check your America History before making another comment like THIS one.
:yes:

The fact is that many immigrants for whatever reason aren't learning english, so what are you going to do? Deport them back to Mexico? Then happens to their children who were BORN in the USA? Will we set up orphanages for them? I tell you this is a recipe for breeding homegrown terrorists in your OWN country. Are we going to refuse them healthcare because they don't speak English? Well now that doesn't sound like the compassionate doctor so many of us hoped to be to me.

You know, I'm STILL waiting on a response of what we CAN do intead of trying to tear my responses to pieces. :rolleyes:

When I was a volunteered in the 'hood, I spoke ebonics with some patients and also served as "translator" of sorts to those PHYSICIANS and nurses who didn't. I see speaking the "language" just as important as providing healthcare, because your ability speak the language could potentially effect your ability to provide care.

No, I'd venture to say that the reason folks have their boxers and thongs in a bunch ove rthe immigration issues is because one day, those with brown skin will one day RULE this country. Of course, that means that things will return to the way the USED to be.

I guess I'm so passionate about this issue because I'm a little bit latina but a lotta bit Native Amercian (1/4). More than that, I haven't forgotten HOW this country was "founded" and all the tens of millions of lives that were destroyed making this an english speaking country. So this idea that English SHOULD be the ONLY language spoken here is just ridiculous in a country that was 1) STOLEN from the people who already lived here and 2) Is full of so many immigrants anyway. But I guess all this makes me an idealistic premed!

I am realistic, too: a lot of immigrants don't speak English YET. It makes my life -- and their medical care -- a lot better if I can communicate with them. So I have taken the time to learn Spanish. The Hispanic students in my medical school actually gave a little mini-course to the rest of us! And I continued to learn from patients as the years went by.

Since my area has a lot of immigrants from a lot of different places, I have also made the effort to learn a little Tagalog and Hindi. Just the important, urgent words, like "pain," "nausea," "sit up," "take a deep breath," "are you ready to push," etc., and the polite, friendly words like "hello" and "thank you." For Chinese, I have the characters written down and can point to them (they are too hard to pronounce properly). The translations were kindly provided by bilingual coworkers, patients and family of patients.

That is what I have done. There is no way I'm suggesting that every doctor should do that. It is something that I enjoy and it works for me. If people are going to be working with a lot of immigrants, they might consider doing the same. Last I heard, there was also an AT&T Language Line that you could call for translations of various languages.

As for the immigrants themselves, they should learn English ASAP, and until then, they should bring a bilingual person with them to appointments. It will make their lives a lot easier, and they will get better medical care. Would somebody tell them to do this, please?

pathdr2b, if you took critisism personally by anything I said, there was nothing directed at you. I had no idea that you were premed and I was just asking what your current situation was. I wasn't implying any criticism in what I asked. I just wanted to have a discussion, that is all. No one is throwing insults at you or anyone else. This is just something I was hoping to have an open talk about because it had been on the news recently, and I was just hoping to hear some ideas/thoughts from others in the field. I had registered for this site quite a while ago, and had been reading the posts periodically... and I just thought that I would have a go at being an active participant in the forum... but if we can't just discuss things knowing that we're going to have differences in opinion, I think I'll just abstain from further postings. Thanks.

Same here...I was not (in my post) referring to anything in particular that anyone here wrote...just my thoughts. I still think that if you are in the US that you should learn English and I am not saying that knowing Spanish is NOT a good thing...but to require it would be wrong IMHO. Sure, if you ARE a doc that is catering to Latinos then knowing Spanish is of course a huge asset...but to require it is another whole issue. Of course that all of us here are immigrants for the most part unless you are NA but last time I checked the language "de jour" is English right? so hence my post about having the immigrants learn the language of their new country...

oh, and thanks for your thoughts sahmd and efex...i do have to defend myself on a couple of things... i never said i wasn't happy doing what i'm doing... i did know what i was getting myself into... and i actually have very few patients i can't communicate with in my clinic... so for me now, not knowing spanish is not a big hindrance... and i have a nurse and other staff members who can help me out if needed. I don't necessarily have to "sashey" myself anywhere... I have been on medical mission trips to mexico many times (w/ translators)... i see many patients for free in my own office via a service in Dallas known as Project Access which provides care for working families without insurance, etc... i am also in the process of getting my MPH and going back to fellowship in a couple of months to do endocrinology because there i am aware of its increasing prevalence (esp amongst minorities)... i may or may not learn spanish... if i ever start to feel my patient care is being compromised, i will... but w/services like translators via phone/staff/family members who are much more fluent than i'll ever be, it works.
those of us who work in private practice aren't all in it for the money...
So can we now get back to the issue?

I think that this is a really important issue and it is always important to think of what we would do if we were in positions to change America policy. I don’t really have a solution but for me it would take a revamping of the healthcare system and isn’t so much about immigrants because I want immigrants to be able to come here and I want the people here to be able to stay here. I think that if someone wants to better the lives of themselves and their family it should be relatively easy for them to be able to do that legally but that isn’t the system here. I have friends who have struggled to stay in this country because they were downsized and were told to immediately vacate the country—never mind that they had been here for years, own homes, and have built relationships with loved ones. We are really fortunate in this country and I can see why people want to come here. At the same time, there need to be more laws so that these immigrants are not taken advantage of. Right now there are illegal immigrants who work really hard and get paid nothing close to minimum wage and they do it because they want to and they have to so they can support their families. A system that is easier to navigate would make things better and then the government could be sure that these people get paid what they are supposed to.
With respect to healthcare, I believe that everyone in the world should have basic healthcare as a right not a privilege. Would it cost a lot? Yes. Would all of us have to pay to help this work? Yes. Do I think that it would take so much money out of my pocket to burden me? Nope. Do I think without insurance companies all of this would be cheaper? Absolutely.
I know that it isn’t close to a great solution but like I said, the most important thing is to at least think about it.

Also, I just wanted to say that some of the earlier posts seemed to confuse speaking Spanish with cultural competency. They aren’t the same thing and I would hope that physicians and medical students were taking the time to be culturally competent over learning to speak one language that some of their patients may speak. As long as you educate yourself on the different cultures and you know how to properly utilize a translator—not a family member—to communicate with your patients you will be way ahead of the game and your patients will get better care because of it. Just my opinion but my medical school has inundated me with cultural competency practices so I am pretty biased.