89. Los traductores

Can't return to routine clinic without acknowledging my translators.  Sarah is a young ex-pat who studied Spanish in Argentina (one day she decided to learn Spanish and travelled there to do so), then ended up in Bogata, working with the export business of the brother of one of the Ecuador team's founding physicians.  She not only paid her way but because she gets paid by the hour, gave up a week's pay by coming here.  In listening to her translations (I understand a whole lot more than I can express), I appreciated that her explanations in Spanish were often better than my original English comments.  And she kindly helped me with my Spanish, as I tried to move beyond, "Donde se duele?" And she made the front page!

Two translators in Monterrico: Diana, Guatemalan by birth, but for several years has lived in U.S.  Her English is excellent as is her persistently positive attitude.  I think, however,  the midwife must have been frustrated by one abbreviated translation.  L. was asking the comadrones to comment on their experience with postpartum hemorrhage.  "Do you every have bleeding," she asked, "that flows like a river?"  Diana essentially translated this evocative image as "mucho sangrante"-- a lot of bleeding.

And Florina, a Montericcan, who has just picked up English by being around the traveling medical teams.
She did a fine job.

And me?  I think I'm getting better.  Towards the end, I was able to evaluate, diagnose, treat and explain all without a translator's help.

88. OP #10 Monterrico's Comadrones

Taking the opposite approach of Malawi, Guatemala encourages lay midwives--comadrones--offering support such as periodic training sessions (Malawi, to remind you, basically outlawed lay midwives, claiming that they were "unteachable").







We invited Monterrico midwives to meet with L., the midwife who was a member of our team; four came.  L. asked them why they became midwives.  The strongest reply came from a midwife of some 15 years who related her story of being ignored by the medical establishment when she delivered in hospital.

Several years ago I asked a group of medical students in Hue, Viet Nam why they decided to study medicine.  Several answered in a similar manner:  they had witness family members who had not been well treated by physicians.  But a greater number answered that they were meeting family expectations.    For several years I've worked with a second-generation Chinese-American surgeon, who quite frankly admits that he became a doctor just because that's what his father wanted. So he did it.  Fifty years later, he is an accomplished surgeon and continues to operate part time--he really enjoys it.