Deaf Student Denied Interpreter by Medical School, Draws Focus of Advocates

[randomtasks]

Speaking with the parents of a sick infant, Michael Argenyi, a medical student, could not understand why the child was hospitalized. During another clinical training session, he missed most of what a patient with a broken jaw was trying to convey about his condition.

Comments

[tilmon]

I'm pretty horrified that he doesn't sign. Bad call, parents. I think that leaves him open to more discrimination rather than less.

A lost of able-bodied people understand only one level of disability. To them, blind means that you can see nothing at all, deaf means hearing nothing at all, mobility impairment means you use a wheelchair. If you show any sign of being able to see light, hear a noise, or ambulate, they expect you of "faking" and become very resistant to assisting you. Seems to me that this is what is happening at that school. He hears a little, enough so that after brief encounters, able-bodied people assume he is one of them. They don't understand that any "faking" is faking of not having a disability, of acting in such a way that the average person doesn't feel threatened. And sadly, courts often interpret disability the same way, so I'm not positive he's going to win his case.

[shoujokakumei]

I totally agree with your second paragraph. People have no idea of "degrees of disability." It's really pretty awful.

I had a deaf co-worker with a CI, he could hear in a limited capacity, but we worked in a very loud environment and he had trouble differentiating speech from background noise... So he kept his limited hearing ability a secret from most of the people there so they wouldn't expect him to be able to hear at all, because he knew that a lot of people wouldn't respect the needs he did have.

[tabaqui]

Yes, him not learning to sign seems like just setting him up for failure, since 'mouthing' words is so innacurate, especially in the medical field when illnesses and/or medications can have odd, complicated and difficult to pronounce names. What if his interpreter has no medical background, and can't pronounce things correctly?

[perthro]

What if the patient themselves is unable to tell the doc their history, because they're having a minor stroke, have some kind of neurological or muscular impairment, or have some other kind of problem that prevents them from saying a medication or something properly? Mouthing is far from accurate.

I'm going to have to learn to sign now that I'm going deaf for no apparent reason. x.x Which bosses, government assistance people, and schools think is BS because I CAN still hear some. It's just that everyone sounds like they're talking underwater most days. I really think he should do the same. It isn't much, but it's something, and then he'll be able to communicate with other signers on his own.

[tabaqui]

I really don't understand why they'd insist on 'no interpreter'. Do they want him to mishear/misread things and diagnose a patient incorrectly? Makes me wonder if they were/are rethinking having him as a student and using this as a way to push him out.

[the_physicist]

either they want him out after all, or they don't understand disability (both are likely). they think he just needs to try harder with the lip reading or something.

[skellington1]

I don't know if it's the case here, but a lot of med schools (and especially teach hospitals once you get to clinic work) are really big on the idea that they're culling the weak from the strong and giving ridiculous amounts of work to 'see if you can handle it', so, yeah, "Trying to push him out" seems like a reasonable guess, to me.

Consider that lots of med students do residencies where they're required to work thirty hour shifts, basically just to prove they can. As a patient, I think that's insane - I don't want a sleep deprived doc making decisions for me! As someone at least a little familiar with the various conditions exacerbated by lack of sleep, I think it's ableist -- some people just can't do that. But it falls right in line with this "Well, suck it up, you just can't do it" ableism in the article.

[tabaqui]

THIS.

I have always thought that a sleep-deprived and possibly malnourished intern is a frigging lawsuit waiting to happen. It's stupid.

[hermionemalfoy]

Wow. Thanks for signal boosting this, I had no idea this was going on. Unfortunately perfect use of the "flames on the side of my face" tag...

[tadashee]

Wow.

[ginger_maya]

I'm curious how does this work in the States. Let's say, for the sake of the argument, that they allow him to have an interpreter now. Will he need an interpreter during his entire medical career? What qualifications will this interpreter have? If they're not a doctor (or a nurse, for that matter, or any kind of medical personnel) will the patients be, indeed, willing to divulge private and sometimes embarrassing medical information in the interpreter's presence? Will this interpreter maintain that doctor-patient confidentiality the doctor is obligated to maintain? Edit: And if they're not and they don't, will there be any kind of negative consequences for the interpreter?

[teaoli]

According to a friend who used to be in the field, medical interpreters where we (my friend and I) live are 1) trained in (some) medical terminology and 2) required to maintain doctor-patient confidentiality. And every time I've actually seen one at work (it's depressingly amazing what people will talk when they assume a person near-by doesn't understand any of the involved languages), the patient had to agree to use their services before the doctor started asking questions that might be covered under the confidentiality protections.

ETA: I'd assume that his interpreter(s) would be held to similar standards as interpreters who are their because of a language barrier.

[roseofjuly]

I'd be willing to speak to an interpreter who worked in tandem with a doctor, assuming that the interpreter was also bound by the same laws of confidentiality and was compassionate and sensitive. I would view the interpreter as just another part of the healthcare team - no different from retelling your story 50 million times to all the nurses, techs, and administrators who you see when you go to the doctor. And I mean, if you've ever been to a teaching hospital, sometimes there are like 4 people in the room together that you have to talk to at the same time who are learning (attending/resident and some interns or whatever, I don't know what their set-up is).

[the_physicist]

Provided he even needs an interpreter past med school. He can't sit in front of patiens quizzed in a group setting or ask them to just repeat something they said quickly. He'll be able to do that once qualified depending on specialty.