Being examined by a doctor who doesn't speak your language

Has anyone had to be examined by a doctor who didn't speak their language?

The idea of having to be either shown, or moved by the doctor, as to what to do so that they can examine you, with actions or maybe broken English, is quite cool. Or maybe a nurse or receptionist had to translate....

Hi daiv

i was examined in two ocassions by a doc who didn't speak my language. the first - i wrote about it in another post here about being a foreign student abroad at the age of 15, and the most embarressing situation in wich i was examined - including genital exam - by a doctor i didn't know who spoke english (wich i spoke ok for a 15 y.o but in no way was my language)and in front of my host dad.

the second ocassion was 10 years later in thailand. i was traveling in thailand and got a terible flue or something like that and after 2 days a friend of mine asked for the guesthouse lady for help and she sent us with a taxi to a local clinic where a local thai doc saw me. he spoke only few words in english and we spoke no thai at all but he examined me - took my pulse and b.p and temperature and then gave me some green unmarked pills to take 3 per day and like a miracle, i was back on my feet the next day.

I was once treated in an ER outside of Montreal while visiting family there. I was in first grade and came down with a horrible case of tonsillitis. The medical staff didn't speak any English, so my aunt translated. They took my temperature rectally -which was familiar at home but my aunt had been taking it orally at her house (in spite of me getting medicine via suppositories) - and then gave me a painful penicillin shot in the butt. I remember making a big deal out of going there in my PJs and making sure my aunt told them, en Francais, that I didn't normally go out in my PJs. It was a little disorienting being treated by people who didn't speak my language and hearing French all around me.... certainly an added layer of vulnerability.

Never had this happen. I don,t think i would like it.

The only time I see this occurring is if you are in a foreign country and have an emergency medical condition.

Hmm, a lot of the benefit would be lost I think if you cannot communicate effectively with the doctor. You could point and so forth but it'd be much harder to communicate.

It can happen very often if you live for a certain time in a foreign country as many of those impose medical exams for residence permits or driving licences( (I have been told the Chinese are quite good at this, but even France does it)); Then, if you are, like myself ,hypocondriac and reluctant to everything connected to medicine, this increases your anxiety and makes tne ordeal even worse.

I guess it would be very difficult to can't communicate with the doctor, and then not reassuring.

Never had to live such situation.

Provided that my medical problem was not a serious one, putting myself in the hands of a doctor with whom I had difficulty in communicating (and vice versa) would have a certain appeal to me. It goes back to the origins of my fetish as a child, and one of the elements in that was knowing very little about what was going to happen to you and not being told by the doctor (or anyone else), so that you felt yourself completely at the doctor's mercy.

That may seem strange to younger members of the board, but it was a situation that I and many others experienced, growing up in the middle of the 20th century.

Not sure how relevant this is, but I used to work a lot with new immigrants and would be asked by them to recommend contacts and services in the community. I had an excellent family doctor of my own, but even though the immigrants' English might be perfectly adequate for most everyday situations, they always told me that they wanted a doctor of the same ethnicity as themselves. They were understandably concerned about having to explain their symptoms in a second language, and were also afraid that they might misunderstand the doctor's diagnosis and prescribed course of treatment.

This happens quite lot not with me but with my customers and i have to translate

I happened to face the situation once with my wife, when I was working in Hong Kong. She needed to do a full physical for insurance and I also did not know any chinese. I t was really funny situation for us. It was very very difficult to understand him. ,so i asked my wife to take off all of your clothes and let him do anything he like. My wife , being a beautiful woman with good shape, then in her early twenties, made the doctor( he not a gyno) suprised by doing so.

I'd find the language barrier to be an issue, as such misunderstandings for both parties could arise, which is not productive when you are seeking medical advice and the doctor is trying to ascertain what the problem is. Certainly wouldnt want anyone translating, they could be telling you/them anything and you wouldnt know!

I'm going to recount what seems like a joke but I swear to you it really happened to me and is an experience I'll never forget.

I was having pelvic pain so I made an appointment with the urgent care doctor in my clinic since my personal doc did not have any openings in his schedule to see me. I'd never met the urgent care doc before but was in pain so it didn't really matter to me who I saw. So I told the nurse what issues I was having and she told me to undress from the waist down and to put on a gown and the doc would be in soon to see me. He came in the room and she told me to get into the stirrups while he sat down on his stool between my legs. She was called out of the room due to an emergency, which left the doc and me alone. So I was lying in the stirrups, staring at the ceiling and talking to the doc and asking him questions and he never said a word to me. I thought he was super rude but thought maybe he wanted to focus on the exam and would talk with me afterward. He finished the exam and left the room. A few minutes later, the nurse came back in and told me that everything was normal and to get dressed. I told her that the doc didn't say a single word to me and didn't answer any of my questions while I was lying in the stirrups. "Dr. so-and-so is deaf," she said. I was shocked as no one had warned me prior to the exam. I asked her how he can do his job and be a gyno when he can't hear. She said to me, "Oh, don't worry. He can read lips."

At my previous job I often had to go to Japan for 1-2 weeks, usually 1-2 times per year. One of the times there, towards the end of my stay, I got a serious sinus infection and was miserable. My boss (a Japanese man) was over there with me at the time and he was my host on that visit. When he came to the hotel to pick me up one morning I told him I didn't feel well and was not going to the plant that day. He asked me a million questions and making a big deal of it. I explained I just wanted to go back to sleep. A couple of hours later he shows up at my hotel room with the plant nurse. She took my temperature and apparently I had a fever. She said I couldn't go back inside the plant until I went to the doctor and was fever free. So they took me to what looked like a small hospital or maybe a very large urgent care or medical building of some sort. After a long wait, all 3 of us were called back. We were escorted down a long narrow hallway, on one side were small exam rooms that could be closed off with a curtain, kind of like some E.R.'s in the states. Not a single curtain was closed and there were patients, male and female, in every room. Some were in a state of undress, but I never looked too closely as we were walking rather quickly. At least one doctor was going down the line, one room after another. It appeared that each room was assigned a nurse, so she also stayed in this small room with us. Talking to the plant nurse and my boss, and them translating, she had me lie down on a cot, took my temperature and BP. The doctor came in, and my boss again translating, had me take off my shirt, listened to my back and chest, did a quick abdominal exam, and briefly looked at my head. He handed me a little plastic container that had a dozen or so small pills, and the three of us left and returned to my hotel. The next two days after that I would show up at the plant and be taken to the medical rooms and the nurse would take my temperature. I had a fever both of those days so they made me lie on a cot behind a curtain. My boss would come get me at the end of the day and drive me back to the hotel. Good times! Finally it was time to leave and return home. That was the worst flight of my life. 14 hour plane ride and I thought my head was going to explode once we got up to altitude. Terrible trip!