The Primary Care, Second Language podcast was created by University of Saskatchewan medical students, with Regina faculty member Dr. Helen Chang (MD) helping to oversee the project. (Photo: Submitted)
The "Primary Care, Second Language" podcast was created by University of Saskatchewan medical students, with Regina faculty member Dr. Helen Chang (MD) helping to oversee the project. (Photo: Submitted)

Primary Care, Second Language

“Primary Care, Second Language” is a podcast project based in Saskatchewan and launched in the summer of 2023 by a group of medical students at the University of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine.

By Retaj Ramadan and Kevin Entwistle

It provides healthcare professionals with a language resource for improving the care of marginalized patient populations.

The diversity of languages covered by our podcast episodes reflects both our research team and the people of Saskatchewan. In our province, 13.8%* of the population speaks a language other than English, meaning that our healthcare system regularly serves multilingual community members.

Through several short, 5–10-minute podcast episodes, we sought to tackle some common English phrases for a given clinical encounter and translate them into the multiple languages spoken in Saskatchewan. We reached out to multilingual community members to serve as guest hosts on the episodes and have so far translated medical phrases in French, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Mandarin, Hindi, Bangla and Spanish. Each episode is dedicated to a different language and centres around a specific clinical encounter. For example, descriptors of pain in Hindi, a basic primary care visit in Spanish or abdominal pain history in French.

Many of our patient community members can speak English, but medical terminology often presents a barrier to effective communication. Healthcare professionals who know even a few words or phrases in their patient’s language can help bridge this communication gap. More importantly, a provider that knows a few words in a patient’s native tongue can reaffirm their dedication to creating a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space for that patient, regardless of the language they speak.

Both the team and our wonderful community translators have worked hard to bring these episodes to life and we are thrilled to see engagement with our resource across listening platforms. The listen counts, shares, and ratings show us that this resource is valuable and important, and that healthcare professionals are engaging with our work.

The podcast is available through all major podcast platforms.

“Primary Care, Second Language” has 10 episodes available now on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, and other podcast platforms. Our team is incredibly passionate about addressing social determinants of health, including education and literacy, as well as equitable access to health services.

The “Primary Care, Second Language” podcast was a summer research project and although the summer is coming to an end and the podcast has officially launched, we anticipate that more episodes will be available as we continue to work on this project throughout the school year. Podcast episodes that cover discipline-specific medical phrases (as well as expanding our translator connections to cover more of the languages spoken in Saskatchewan) are in the works!

Acknowledgement:

Our podcast would not have been possible without funding from the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine Regina Campus and Division of Social Accountability, and the support of the Saskatchewan Health Authority Research team. We greatly appreciate the time and expertise of our interviewed community translators, volunteer podcast hosts and audio editors.

* https://www.saskatchewan.ca/stats