| Popis: |
It has by now been widely established that language barriers have a negative impact on health services; but there is a need for further research on what can be done to overcome these problems. One part of the solution is knowing what the problem consists of. In this presentation, we discuss a multidisciplinary study with a linguist and A&E clinicians that aimed to describe the dynamics of miscommunication in linguistically divergent multi party A&E consultations. An important finding was that miscommunication often passed unnoticed and that depending on the questions asked, the tasks performed or the role dynamics, a language barrier can be at times thick and at other times thin during the same consultation. Therefore, we jointly developed an e-learning module for medical staff that, based on natural data, discusses the dynamics of miscommunication, on the one hand, and how this could relate to medical practice, on the other hand. We also experimented with a multilingual history taking app and learned how this could accommodate patients in stressful linguistically divergent consultations. The act of doing this mutually enriching project as such has also raised awareness on the issue of language divergence among the staff of the A&E in question. |
