ABSTRACT
A researcher includes limited English proficiency as an exclusion criterion in their clinical trial protocol because of the difficulties in translating informed consent documents and hiring bilingual staff. A nursing student on their way to study for an exam is asked by a supervisor to stay late at the hospital to serve as an interpreter despite being untrained and uncompensated for that role. A multilingual clinician is chastised as displaying unprofessional behavior for greeting a colleague in a shared non-English language at work. A medical school only hires English-speaking standardized patients for students to practice clinical communication skills because it is challenging to identify and train non-English-speaking actors. From a research perspective, this focus on dynamic interaction may be harder to study than the static linear model, but for anyone who has seen language differences play out in the clinical space, it most certainly rings true.
