Salaam alaikum. Nay kaung lar. Seh lahm. Hello.

What’s the most pressing challenge when providing medical care in one of the most diverse cities in the U.S.?

Julia Schiff, an MD/MPH alumna, believes it is the ability to communicate with patients who speak dozens of different languages. As a student, she led a project to provide linguistically competent care to refugee patients at the Clarkston Community Health Center. The team, which consisted of students from Emory schools of medicine, public health, nursing, and business, started by conducting an assessment. They found that nearly half of the center’s patients had unmet language needs. They determined which languages were most needed—Arabic, Burmese, Nepali, and Amharic—and translated printed materials, checklists, and chart stickers into those languages. They also up- dated the clinic’s outdated telephone interpreter list, engaging new volunteer interpreters, and installing phones in exam rooms. Finally, they recruited people from the Clarkston community to be trained in medical interpreting. “We were able to provide appropriate interpretation services for many more patients, and we got good feedback from the clinic volunteers and staff,” says Schiff. Martha McKenzie

Clinic for the Ages

By Dr. Clyde Partin

In their total ensemble of years my nine a ernoon patients added up to an even seven centuries. Seven hundred years of lived life, the rst two ninety-four each, the average age seventy-seven-point seven seven seven seven seven seven, which seemed to mirror in nity, the least-old only sixty just like me a stark reminder of my own mortality.

e two medical students added youthful exuberance and four-point- ve decades and it made me wonder why some of these less-young patients felt compelled to ask me, Do you think I should see a geriatrician? By mathematical default I am one.

For during that half-day of clinic

I shepherded point-seven millennia of rusting humanity through another day then smiled as I recalled that the daughter of the rst patient, who graced me every Christmas with a box of Harry and David’s pears fruit so succulent, so sweet, requested a photo of me with her mother. A few attempts to get it right then proudly she showed us a picture for eternity of an aging pair.