Clinical Suspicion and Language Translation in the Pediatric Emergency Department - Bravo 2021

Elucidating a medical history and securing patient consent and buy-in are challenging in any North American pediatric emergency room, but especially in teens with limited English fluency. Translators can help, but their limited availability and imprecision decrease their usefulness. We describe 2 teenage girls who presented to our pediatric emergency department within 48 hours with comparable symptoms but no evident explanation or physical results. We show how difficult language translation issues in these teens delayed diagnoses and recommend for independent interpreters on first hospital presentation.

Bravo M, Lim R, Poonai N, Chen B. Clinical Suspicion and Language Translation in the Pediatric Emergency Department. Pediatr Emerg Care. 2021 May 1;37(5):e272-e274. doi: 10.1097/PEC.0000000000001606. PMID: 30130342.