Language Skills Are in Demand – Great For Employers and For You
There is a growing demand for physician assistants with advanced language skills, and for good reason, too. English may be the official language spoken in the United States, but millions of our residents don’t speak English, or speak it rarely or less than fluently.
The Center for Immigration Studies has analyzed 2018 Census Bureau data and found that more than 67 million people speak a foreign language at home. In some of our cities, more than half of the residents don’t speak English at home.
The number of people who don’t count English as their first language has doubled since 1980, and is likely to grow further. Almost one in 10 people in the United States have limited proficiency in English.
Language skills could be your key to a more rewarding career and higher earnings as a physician assistant.
Why Are Language Skills Important for Physician Assistants?
As a physician assistant, you are likely to be exposed to many patients who speak different languages, especially in hospital settings.
You may be called on for emergency care. Knowing more than one language is necessary for you to communicate effectively with patients and family members of patients who don’t speak English. You’ll need to be comfortable with medical terminology in different languages – and caring for patients effectively requires knowledge of or adaptability to different cultural norms.
You should ensure that you include your language skills on your resume. But what if you aren’t proficient in other languages? What languages should you focus on learning?
Which Languages Are Most in Demand?
There are seven languages that are spoken at home by more than one million residents in the United States. In order, these are:
- Spanish (41.5 million)
- Chinese (3.5 million)
- Tagalog (1.8 million)
- Vietnamese (1.5 million)
- Arabic (1.3 million)
- French (1.2 million)
- Korean (1.1 million)
And the fastest-growing of these languages? Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic.
5 Benefits for Physician Assistants Who Are Competent in Foreign Languages
Patients are happier when they can communicate with their doctors and nurses in their native language. They also feel more confident about understanding what is being discussed in the care they receive.
Physician assistants who can speak different languages will create a better experience for patients and enhance the doctor-patient relationship. Here are five reasons physician assistants who speak foreign languages are in demand.
1. To Provide More Efficient and Effective Care
While physician assistants have many responsibilities, one of their main functions is to make sure that patient needs are met while they work with physicians and nurses. This allows physicians to spend more time focusing on providing the correct patient care, rather than trying to second guess the severity of a patient’s symptoms.
Clearly, when a physician has a better understanding of a patient’s needs, they can provide the best care possible. Yet, for many years physicians have reported that not being able to understand patients – and not being understood by patients – contributes to poor care planning, adverse medical events, and medical errors.
A common strategy to mitigate lack of understanding has been to employ translators, but this is both costly and can itself lead to errors. A physician assistant with language skills can not only understand the patient but also relate the patient’s symptoms with a good knowledge of healthcare issues, terms, and medical language.
2. Improving Patient Engagement
Patient engagement is an important part of healthcare. When a patient is engaged, they are more likely to seek the help that they need. Further, patients who participate in their care have better outcomes than those who do not. These patients also have fewer complications and shorter stays in the hospital.
Patients are more likely to remain engaged in their care if their provider is fluent in the language spoken by the patient. This allows for better communication and understanding which leads to more effective treatment.
When a physician assistant understands their patient, it helps them build a rapport with them and improve engagement as well as provide better care for the patient.
3. Improved Patient Satisfaction
Patient satisfaction is directly related to physician assistant communication skills. Patients will feel more engaged with a physician assistant who can relate to them more effectively and provide them with more effective communication. Thus, having multiple languages can be an asset for physician assistants in terms of patient satisfaction.
4. Providing More Culturally-Competent Services for Patients Who Don’t Speak English
Research has revealed that the ability to communicate effectively is a key factor in building cultural competence. Indeed, The LEARN (Listen, Explain, Acknowledge, Recommend, Negotiate) model is a framework for cross-cultural communication that relies on competence in language skills.
In the hospital setting, the role of language skills is important because they help the provider with understanding cultural differences and making a connection with patients from different backgrounds. Therefore, poor language skills can be a barrier to communication, which hinders good cultural experiences.
5. A Reduction in Patient Disputes and Litigation
When a physician assistant communicates more effectively with patients in their own language, those patients can ask questions about their health, express concerns, and feel more informed. This builds trust in less time and without any miscommunication.
A study published by NCBI, titled ‘Implications of language barriers for healthcare: A systemic review’ found that:
“Language barriers in healthcare lead to miscommunication between the medical professional and patient, reducing both parties’ satisfaction and decreasing the quality of healthcare delivery and patient safety. In addition, the review found that interpreter services contribute indirectly to increased cost and the length of treatment visits.”
The risk of being sued for poor-quality healthcare and for putting patients in danger is consequently far higher when dealing with patients who do not speak English fluently.
How Can You Improve Your Language Skills?
Learning a foreign language is not easy. It requires lots of focus and time, which makes it difficult to do, especially with a full-time job. However, with technology and the internet at our disposal, it has never been easier to learn other languages.
There are many tools available on the internet that can help you become fluent in different languages quickly and efficiently, providing you with the necessary exercises and content for you to learn a language effortlessly. The techniques you use to learn a foreign language are important, too.
For example, instead of learning grammar or vocabulary, focus on learning words that are relevant to your daily life and your work as a physician assistant.
Find an approach that works for you. Are there any specific study methods that work best for learning languages faster or better? There is no one right way to learn a language. The most important thing is finding a flexible and sustainable plan.
The key is to have a clear goal for your language learning – this will help to motivate and excite you about learning a new language. As you become more proficient, use your emerging language skills with patients, and watch for their reaction.
Where Could Your Language Skills Take You?
If you understand the languages that your patients speak, you can communicate with them more effectively and make them feel better about their care. You will be able to provide more accurate information and answer their questions in their language – helping to improve trust, understanding, and patient engagement.
Your language skills can assist with interpreting information and patient needs, aiding in cultural appropriateness during medical procedures, and improving a hospital’s performance.
Where can your language skills take you as a physician assistant? Contact Loyal Source today for a confidential discussion about your career and to learn of some of the very best opportunities for physician assistants with language skills – including our currently available Physician Assistant positions for English-Spanish bilingual candidates in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas!