Language as a Diagnostic Tool in Medicine

The increasingly globalized landscape of our society today requires that many industries change to meet the needs of multilingual and multicultural consumers. While commercial enterprises seem to be adapting to this need to provide services for a wide variety of individuals, the medical system of the United States has been slow to adopt changes to better serve the entire US population, not just the English-speaking population. Medical interpretation services are a popular solution to overcoming language barriers between medical professionals and patients; however, significant flaws in these systems, such as prolonged appointment duration and lack of regulatory standards, indicate that the use of external interpretation systems is not a sustainable long-term solution. This thesis examines the current services offered by medical professionals to non-English speakers while evaluating if instituting language requirements among healthcare professionals could serve as a long-term solution to provide higher quality care for non-English speakers. This paper investigates the possible effects of increased numbers of bilingual healthcare providers. Through reviewing the effects of second-language acquisition on both the brain and the ability to communicate, as well as interviews with multilingual medical professionals, this research suggests that bilingual medical professionals demonstrate enhanced cognitive capabilities and greater empathy in comparison to monolingual counterparts. Not only would increased numbers of bilingual healthcare professionals benefit English-speaking communities by improving overall communication quality, but they could serve as a long-term solution in providing consistent access and equitable access to quality healthcare services for non-English speakers.