Language of Healthcare

Organizers: Ulla Connor & Kathryn Lauten

Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication,

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

Healthcare services are just one of the communities of practice that are affected by increasing globalization and the need for linguistic competence in interpersonal and intercultural negotiation. First, the impact of linguistic and cultural diversity of patient populations has resulted in increased demand on healthcare delivery. Second, at least in the U.S., there has been a shortfall in qualified healthcare professionals in certain healthcare sectors, e.g., family practice. This has created a need to educate and hire international healthcare professionals. Third, failures in doctor-patient interactions, with or without language or country of origin differences, have been shown to be critical issues in patient care.

Healthcare delivery and education in multicultural, multilingual societies can benefit from the findings of intercultural language research. In healthcare communication, health literacy for a patient is not only being able to read and interpret doctor's prescriptions and directions, reading patient information leaflets that come with prescription drugs, dosage instructions, filing insurance forms, etc. Being health literate includes a myriad of oral interactions with healthcare professionals, family, and friends to confirm, verify and find new information that leads to adherence in management and medication.  

In this colloquia, findings from research in the U.S., Australia, and Hong Kong will be used to show discourse failures and successes and how both non-native and native speakers (patients and health professionals) adjust their speech, writing, and intercultural communication patterns for mutual understanding at the levels of language and pragmatics.  In addition, the colloquia will identify and address the pragmatic, linguistic and intercultural competence of internationally trained medical professionals.

Doctor-Patient Communication in EDs: Contextual Complexity & Competing Discourses

Diana Slade (Hong Kong Polytechnic University and University of Technology, Sydney)

Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen (Department of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

We will present and discuss some of the findings of a three-year project in five Emergency Departments in Australia that involved recording, analyzing and describing patient-clinician interactions through the ED from triage to disposition – identifying the features of both successful and unsuccessful interactions. We will describe the communication features typical of many of the interactions.

How medical communication can be done better in trilingual settings?

Diana Slade, Jack Pun, Elaine Espindola; Christian Matthiessen, Francisco Veloso, Marvin Lam; Andy Ka

Department of English, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

This paper will report on a research project that involved recording and describing all the interactions between 10 patients and their clinicians in an Accident and Emergency Department in a trilingual setting in Hong Kong, and will present the findings of a thematic analysis of interviews with 30 key clinicians and management on communication.

Patient language and agency in Latino life story narratives

Marta Antón, Associate Professor of Spanish

Indiana University Indianapolis, IUPUI 

This presentation addresses agency and its relation to adherence and recommended treatment. Agency is an important variable in explaining health-related behaviour. An understanding of how individual agency among Latinos is socially motivated will be presented from findings of an analysis of life stories.

Communication Competency Training of IMG's

Lauren Harvey, ICIC Assistant Director of Training

Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication, IUPUI

Negotiating intercultural interactions between International Medical Graduates (IMGs) and their patients and colleagues to ensure professionalism and quality patient care is an important issue in medical discourse. The implementation of the Interpersonal Communication Assessment (ICA) to identify and address the pragmatic, linguistic and intercultural competence of IMGs will be discussed.