As a child, MJ Grein would interpret for her deaf mother during medical appointments. At a recent workshop she designed to help health care professionals communicate more effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing patients, she shared personal stories with the trademark humor of someone who has made the best of a difficult experience.
For the deaf and hard-of-hearing, interacting with the health care system can be a major source of stress, said Grein, administrative operations lead at Harvard Medical School’s Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. A doctor who knows some basic signs, or even how to work with an interpreter, can substantially improve patients’ experiences, she said.
“I want to demystify it, if you will,” said Grein. “How do you work with an interpreter if you’ve never worked with one? What are the expectations?”
The session was one of several offerings of Beyond Words: Understanding Deaf Culture, ASL, and the Role of CODAs [Children of Deaf Adults] in Healthcare, launched in September in recognition of Deaf Awareness Month. In each, Grein teaches students, residents, and other health care professionals about essential concepts in Deaf culture, basic medical American Sign Language (ASL) signs, and best practices for working with interpreters. The workshops are interactive and designed to improve cultural competency and communication.
In the recent workshop, Grein encouraged attendees to learn more sign language, ideally from deaf instructors.
“Everyone can learn sign language,” she said. “Deaf people can’t learn to hear, and that’s the difference.”
Attendees learned basic vocabulary that might be helpful in medical encounters — signs for words like pain, help, emergency, nurse, doctor, and breathing.
“We all know how essential it is to calm someone down, to take deep breaths, in order to help them,” Grein said. Even a few signs, she added, can help make a patient feel more secure.
She offered additional practical strategies, such as engaging directly with the patient and being attentive to body language and facial expressions, which can convey a lot even to a person who doesn’t know sign language, she said.
In good company
Grein’s series is one of many programs offered at the Countway Library, which has become a hub of community engagement and professional development in the Longwood Medical Area, according to interim director Len Levin.
“The library is no longer just a place where we have books and online resources,” Levin said. “It’s a place where we identify all sorts of possible needs for our medical community and try to address them.”
