Care to Translate

In 2014, I was a third-year medical student eager to get out into the hospital. Many of the patients I met did not speak either Swedish or English and I found it difficult to even explain to them who I was, not to mention how difficult it was to examine them when we didn’t understand each other. I was surprised by how little there was an interpreter present and that the nursing staff seldomly had any chance of getting help with translations, even though they were interacting with the patients 24/7. I clearly saw that this caused major frustration within the nursing staff and had very negative effects on the patients, but little did I know then how big the issue really was. I then felt the responsibility to do something about it.