Foreign Language in EMS

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MidwestEMT

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I am looking for some reference material or books that contain information pertinent to EMS with other languages. For example, a guide with useful/common EMS terms/questions in other languages. My area has a high amount of hispanics, so spanish would be helpful. There is also a large population of russians, which would be a good language to know some phrases in. But in all reality anything is helpful, especially sign language.

Anybody know of anything like this?
 
The EMS Field Guide from Informed has a couple pages of relevant Spanish translations.
 
The only thing I know is "sick, hurt, and help" in sign language. lol
 
Not sure about books, but Spanish is most certainly the foreign language that EMS providers in the United States –:censored:at least, broadly – encounter most often.

Perhaps a medical Spanish book?
 
The newest version of the Google Translate app (on Android - not sure about iPhone) will read out anything you type in the language you select. It can aso translate by listening to someone speak - if you can get a patient to speak clearly enough, it could be useful.
 
@Epi, spanish would be great for me to know, and will be relatively simple to pick up. However I interact with just as many russians. There is also a Large population from togo, who speak togonese french, and the native languages of ewe and kabiye, however there's a slim chance of finding any resources for those <_<
 
@NJEMT, I've got an iPhone, but i'll have to look into that. An app didn't even cross my mind
 
NJEMT95 said:
The newest version of the Google Translate app (on Android - not sure about iPhone) will read out anything you type in the language you select. It can aso translate by listening to someone speak - if you can get a patient to speak clearly enough, it could be useful.
Click to expand...

Saw a cop using that at a call a couple weeks ago! It actually worked out really well for Spanish! (I can't vouch for other languages)
 
Google translate FTW. In my area we don't have one predominate language group, so learning a language isn't very helpful. I've used Google translate with Russian, Spanish, Swahili, and Arabic with good results.
 
I don't think it would be practical in EMS but we have translator phones in the hospital. They are pretty helpful if you can actually get one.
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I have been told we have access to a translator phone on the ambulance, but I have never heard of it being used and I am not aware of how the process works besides calling dispatch and going "soooo... How do we do this?"
 
In my area there are an increasing amount of international residents from multiple nations. I, myself, have picked up these pts who spoke little to no English which means I need to sit down and learn these languages at least a little: Mexican Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic.
 
Once while volunteering there are calls for older Spanish speaking people and I find it quite interesting and entertaining to interact with pts in Spanish :)
 
Android app by Robert Theis - Spanish (Colombian) Medical

It's free and pretty complete for a patient assessment.
 
Some versions of the Merck Manual had a list of medical terms in different languages. There are many "pocket books" on it.

I wish more of our immigrant population would get into this. There are cultural things which come into play also and a word for word translation is not always going to help beyond a certain point, especially with the elderly.

For instance, why you don;t pat a little Hmong kid on the head? Or why when you go into some homes you need to talk to the man of the house and maybe even introduce yourself around the household before doing much (when time permits of course).
 
There is an App for all iphone and ipodtouch, users I use I would highly recommend. You simply press a button, it records the person talking in almost any language, then gives you a typed out response of there words in English. You can also speak English into it and select there language and it will type out in there language everything you have spoken. I use it a lot in Europe. HOWEVER its not perfect and prone to errors, but it does a pretty good job. Its a hell of a lot better than nothing or some kind of flip guide. I can recommend it, especially for only 99 cents.

http://www.itranslatevoice.com/
 
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