Lost in Translation Again

 6 a.m. Saturday is an ideal time for a call. I had finished writing and was sitting down to breakfast. I told the dispatcher that I would be at the hotel in an hour.

The freeway was clear. Parking, even downtown, would be easy. My phone rang as I drove. It was the guest’s travel insurer warning that there was no answer when he phoned to tell her when I’d arrive. When guests request my services directly and then vanish, I don’t get paid, but this is not the case with travel insurers, so I drove on. It was unlikely she had left the hotel.

At this hour, I check at the desk to make sure I don’t knock at the wrong door. The clerk confirmed the room, called, and reported that someone had answered and then hung up.

It was good news that she was present, not so good that she had immediately hung up. That’s a sign that a guest doesn’t speak English. 

A young Japanese woman greeted me at the door, ushered me inside, consulted her Ipad, then announced in triumph: “......stomach!!....”

One advantage of travel insurance is that dispatchers will interpret. Despite my admonition, they prefer to edit, abridge, and summarize rather than simply translate; their English is often rudimentary, and passing the phone back and forth makes for a long, tedious visit.

On the plus side, these guests usually have uncomplicated problems. It worked out. 

Japanese Never Travel Alone

The room contained four young Asian men and extra beds, on one of which lay my patient looking miserable with a wet washrag on his forehead.

At my first question, several pulled out Japanese-American phrase books, a bad sign. It’s a fact that all Japanese study English in school, but all Americans study American history, and how much do they learn?...

Answers to my questions were on the order of “please perform a diagnostic evaluation” or “the reading of the thermometer seems excessive.” I had reluctantly decided to call their travel insurer’s 800 number (phone interpreting is tedious) when the tour leader entered. His English was rudimentary, and, being Asian, he was too polite to tell me when he didn’t understand, but I managed to confirm my suspicion that the young man had influenza, not life-threatening but a terrible illness for young people who take for granted they’ll never be ill.

Lost in Translation Again

As I stepped out of the elevator, a Japanese man was waiting. “Are you the doctor for the hotel?” he asked.

I was pleased. “Yes. Are you going to interpret for me?”

He stepped back in alarm and waved his English-Japanese phrase book. Hiding my disappointment, I followed him to the room. When he began flipping through the booklet, I shook my head and pointed to the phone before dialing the guest’s Japanese insurance service for an interpreter. There followed a lengthy encounter as the phone passed back and forth between me, the father, and the patient.

The patient had complained of fatigue the previous day. He was otherwise in good health with no other symptoms, and I found nothing abnormal on examination. Sudden fatigue is an ominous sign in the elderly but rarely in a child. I suspected an emotional problem, perhaps from the stress of foreign travel. This is hard to explain across both language and culture, made even harder because I didn’t give a medicine. Giving medicine is a universal language; that’s why doctors prescribe even when it isn’t necessary.

Luckily these were Japanese, so they listened with unfailing courtesy, through the interpreter, to my reassurance and advice (get a good night’s sleep, continue with their itinerary, call if the problem persisted), nodding approval, and thanking me effusively as I left.

A Japanese Guest

A check of Google Maps revealed an ominous red line from my on-ramp to downtown, so I left twenty minutes early for what is usually a half hour drive. It wasn’t enough, and I arrived ten minutes late at the Miyako in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo.

It caters to Japanese, a big advantage when I see Japanese patients. Japanese businessmen sometimes speak English but Japanese tourists don’t, and these were tourists. I asked the desk clerk if she could provide an interpreter. Even in a Japanese-run hotel, most workers are Hispanic, and it may take half an hour to pry loose an employee, often a Japanese-American who speaks Japanese as well as I speak Hungarian, the language of my grandparents.

Luckily, as I waited, the tour leader appeared. His English was rudimentary but adequate. The guest had a fever but the major complaint was indigestion from strange American food.