PROVIDER PERSPECTIVE:
Denice Cora-Bramble, M.D. (2)
Text Transcript

Let me tell you about a few cases that I've encountered, in particularly when looking at this issue of language, which is a tangible issue that you can address. The first one was a Somali infant. And this baby looked at me with those sad eyes but there was no translation. The clinic, which was primarily a Latino clinic, did not have all the fancy services to be able to provide the translators.

While people were hurrying trying to get folks on the phone that could translate for these parents, I looked at the baby and thought the baby could have developmental delay, the baby could have sepsis, the baby could have dehydration and the picture that the baby presented could really be clinically compatible with any of those. And I realized how much in the dark I was, when I just had no access to translation.

Eventually we did go and get somebody on the phone who could translate for the family and we did determine that it was simply a case of dehydration. And the baby came to see me a few weeks later and was a bubbly, happy cheerful child.