Cultural Differences

I am currently on my MS outpatient prac. In my first week of this prac I was assigned a new patient. He was referred into PT after an ortho doctor’s appointment post distal radial fracture, managed conservatively.

On this particular prac we get issued a 90min time frame for each new patient consisting off 30 min subjective assessment, 30 min objective and 30 min for treatment.

My patient was due to arrive in the morning .Upon meeting my patient and introducing myself I came to realize he was unable to converse in fluent English and had limited vocabulary. Nevertheless I took this on as a challenge having the faith that I could overcome this language barrier. Henceforth the commencement of my initial assessment began. Further into the assessment, I had realized that I underestimated this language barrier and was literally left dumbfounded. After about an hour into the subjective assessment I realized that I had still not got vital information with regards to his condition. Upon consultation with my supervisor, it was decided that this patient had to be re-booked for another consultation with an interpreter.

In my opinion of being a physiotherapist, it is essential to have a holistic approach and thus provide services that benefits the patients needs. Even using simple skills such as hand gestures or drawings to express myself and get a likewise feedback goes a long way and enables the patient to feel comfortable with me. With regards to my patient, because of his inability to communicate with me, I was reluctant to express myself in the notion of offending him especially since we both come from very different cultural backgrounds.

From this experience it has given me a broader perspective to my job as a physio whereby it isn’t always going to be smooth sailing and that there are going to be milestones that I have to encounter in order to become a better individual and physio resulting in good patient rapport regardless of their background.

Gaya:)