One thing that I wish I had done before going into medicine was learn Spanish. I've heard several different doctors bat around the statement that by 2030 the US will be predominantly a Spanish speaking population. That statement doesn't hit home anywhere else more than it does in clinic, where I would say I see about 1 English speaking patient for every 9 Spanish. To talk to a Spanish speaker I have to use a phone interpreter, which is not only a huge pain in the @$$, but also really decreases the level of care they get (not to mention the added cost to the clinic in using an interpreter). I can't hear the subtle inflections in a mother who is being abused, I can't tell when a dad is really worried about his kid and he's trying to hide it, and I can't relay my advice, my directions, and my health care nearly as good as I can with an English speaker. There is a lot of subtle body language cues and language inflection codes when dealing with patients and I miss a lot of those cues because I was stubborn. When I went through high school and college my thoughts on the subject were pretty one sided.
"They are the foreigners, they need to learn OUR language, not the other way around!"
Now that I'm seeing these patients every single day, to be honest, my thoughts on the subject hasn't changed much ;P. I still feel like they should learn the national language if they want to live and work here, but my view has changed in that I now see that it's less their fault and more ours. We (Government, Business, or whatever) are enabling it. I really can't blame them for wanting to come here, it's a better life. I would do the same for my wife and child (which is exactly what our ancestors did before us). I don't pretend to understand all the political under currents of what's caused this, but I can see the way the country is going and one thing I do comprehend is that I was an idiot for not learning Spanish ;P.
Newbie Doc
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