By Jermaine Mason
Faculty mentor: Professor Maysoon Al-Sayed
9:00-9:50am, HCC 328
From volunteering in the Emergency Medical Services as an Emergency Medical
Technician, otherwise known as an EMT, one important thing I have learned about patient care is that gathering information from and connecting with your patients. In doing this, you are providing your patient with a knowledgeable and open environment for them to disclose sensitive information and be comfortable in providing you with adequate information to assist you in developing a differential diagnosis and providing your patient with optimal care. Though, this is very difficult to achieve when there is a substantial language barrier between the providers and the patient with their family. This, in turn, impedes care and provides the patient with a suboptimal standard of care and an inhibited experience with medical professionals further on. In creating my capstone project, which is a guide made for primarily English-speaking EMS personnel to interact with primarily Arabic-speaking patients, I seek to close this language gap
and increase potential efficiency in Arabic-speaking patient interactions. In collaboration with my Arabic instructor and members at the Fredericksburg Volunteer Rescue members, I have created a basic translation guide to detail important medical knowledge in both English and Arabic.
