Language Trainers Blog

Source: orlandosentinel.com

The Orlando Health institute in Florida has added another notch to its caring roster – by realising that drugs and surgery are not everything when it comes to looking after their patients; appropriate bedside manner plays a large part, too.

This doesn’t just mean having a smile on your face and treating your patients with a certain level of respect, however. Marisol Romany, the manager of Language Services and Cultural Development at the institute, has invented her own “cultural toolkit” to aid doctors and nurses in dealing appropriate care to patients of different cultural backgrounds.

From the article:

In African American families, elders provide information and advice.

Muslim Arabs prefer dying patients be faced east towards Mecca, their holy city.

Among Haitians, weight loss is seen as a sign of illness.

In 2009, Florida Hospital came up with its “Guide to Religion and Culture,” which was given to all hospital employees “to enhance the delivery of pre-eminent care to our diverse patient community.”

Both hospitals have also beefed up their language interpreter services to meet the needs of Central Florida’s increasingly diverse patient population.

As the region continues to attract residents from all over the country and the world, local health care providers and educators are searching for ways to better serve them.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest to develop and promote building culturally diverse patient services,” said Romany, who was hired five years ago to help the hospital manage its multicultural patient population.

This approach to patient care makes a lot of sense – both from a personal and a business perspective. I enjoy any story where America embraces its multicultural nature, rather than attempts to suppress it!