Interpreter

On a recent placement I had a patient who had moved to Australia from Indonesia less than 10 years ago and spoke very good conversational English and therefore I saw her initially with no interpreter. On further questioning I found that although her English initially appeared to be good she struggled with a lot of the questions during the subjective examination. I continued to rephrase the questions and used simple and common terms and managed to get enough information to perform an objective assessment and treatment. Next time I booked her in I also booked an interpreter and asked for ‘Indonesian.’ At the next appointment I attempted to gain further information from the subjective examination although the patient was still having trouble even with the interpreter. I was not sure why I could not get a thorough subjective from the patient.

At the next appointment a different interpreter was used and I was relieved that I was finally able to gain a thorough subjective examination. Following the appointment the patient told me that the interpreter from last week was Malaysian and therefore didn’t speak true Indonesian, which is why she had trouble understanding, whereas this interpreter was from Indonesia and spoke true Indonesian. This made both the patient and myself a lot happier. Really I feel that an Indonesian interpreter should have been booked in for the initial assessment and realise that it is important for gaining as much information from the patient as you can to provide an effective treatment, as well as making the patient feel as comfortable as possible.