Dr. Alicia Fernandez and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, and at Yale University examined language barriers between patients and doctors at two teaching hospitals with excellent interpreter services. The investigators interviewed 20 residents, young doctors recently graduated from medical school who make up the clinical frontline at these two urban medical centers.
A complex picture emerged from the interviews. While the doctors acknowledged that they were underutilizing professional interpreters, many made the decision not to call an interpreter consciously, weighing the perceived value of patient information against their own time constraints. Moreover, despite their personal misgivings, the doctors often felt that this kind of shortcut was acceptable and well within the norms of their professional environment.
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