"Doctor me duele la cabeza"

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, August-Sept, 2005

The current growth of minorities in the U.S. is beginning to create a more diverse society, and with it, the need for more specialized services. In Texas, for example, an average of one in four people speaks a language other than English at home, in contrast to one out of eight nationally; and bridging the language gap has become more urgent places that offer health care services.

"This means that today's answers to deal with patients in our state's hospitals, probably aren't tomorrow's," said Margie Dorman-O'Donnell, director of case management for Cook Children's Health Care System, speaking at a national conference held in Dallas in June. Cook Children's routinely deals with patients and their families who speak Vietnamese, Chinese, Mandarin, Arabic, French and Farsi, in addition to Spanish.

At a conference titled: "Strategies for Leadership: Does Your Hospital Reflect the Community It Services?" hosted by Cook's Children Medical Center in conjunction with CyraCom International, CyraCom CEO Michael Greenbaum, said: "this shows how important this issue has become." CyraCom is the country's leading provider of language services to health care. The company's language specialists are trained in medical-specific terminology and concepts and provide over-the-phone translations.

The languages most spoken in 700 health care facilities nationwide last year were, according to CyraCom's data, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Korean and Polish.

Cook Children's Medical Center was founded to provide medical and surgical care to the children of Fort Worth, and north and west Texas.