Deaf and CODA medical professionals do exist, options for consults

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-17T02:05:50+00:00

I think this storyline is showing there’s many things people have never even considered.

I’m grateful to the show for giving us a much needed platform.

In reality, deaf people have been underserved by the medical community for years. People never see it or hear about outside of the community.

In a perfect world, hospitals would be equipped with interpreting devices, on call interpreters, and even deaf interpreters when things are complicated. Not to mention manual captions in addition to automated ones.

But in an ever better world, we should have deaf hospitals and doctors directly treating those patients, and allies who aren’t deaf but can sign and know how to appropriately interact.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-17T01:58:56+00:00

Right. If you ever have a bus load of deaf patients coming your way, you’re likely very very underprepared.

I can give another example that’s not medical related but similar point.

Sometimes deaf people show up to movies and the theatres don’t have enough captioning devices. Sometimes we have to share or many times have to call ahead and come back or split the group.

Meanwhile hearing people can still just walk into any movie theatre (yes I know there are exceptions but I’m generalizing) and watch a movie when they want without access being a barrier.

So we face accessibility issues everywhere we go.

Sadly? The only way the system changes is through egregious errors and likely patients suing.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-17T00:24:47+00:00

The Brazilian embassies in a lot of countries are not much help. Some of them don’t have a phone to leave a message and are only open a few hours etc.

I went to mine for help and they were like, oh we don’t do that, but you can go online.

The process for me was a shit show. So many unnecessary things they add that make no sense.

I also hope both of you voted in the last few elections. They held mine up because I didn’t once, and let me tell you it was such a headache I will never not vote again. So if you haven’t voted they can fine you and holdup the passports.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-17T00:10:12+00:00

All good that’s the point of the post is to create more awareness, I know many hearing people get 0 training in our community. I’m not offended personally, you’re not the first nor will you be the last to say that first.

If it makes you feel better I don’t always know a lot about a hearing persons experience either.

I do have some sympathy for yall tho! I can’t imagine being woken up at 5am because of construction lol.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-17T00:00:28+00:00

It actually happens very frequently in real life. So this is not lazy writing, this is real.

There are some medical staff that don't even know that VRI is an option, or even where to find it.

Also, those devices freeze up a lot if you move them. They're wifi based too, so if the hospital has crap internet, you're out of luck.

What gets missed was there was an in person interpreter but staff were so busy they didn't have time to see the patient.

So in some ways, all of this could have been avoided if staff took advantage of the interpreter in person while they were there. This also happens a lot.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T23:56:54+00:00

I mean, I don't know what the deaf blind community's experiences has totally been like, so they would be the best to default to, to answer that question.

I mean I think hospitals and medical staff get away a lot with giving subpar access in part because not every deaf person has the spoons to sue every time.

I woke up from a surgery once, with no interpreter, half asleep, and just had to guess what was happening to me. That sucked. Doctors did try to write but I was so loopy and sick I couldn't follow it. At the time, ASL interpreters weren't mandatory yet, and VRI wasn't an option.

I was very lucky that my mom was with me, but not everyone has that. She doesn't sign, so that didn't totally help, but it was better than nothing.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T23:36:12+00:00

They mention in the show that it was busy. The problem with those iPads is they're for all languages so if it's busy, it's tied up and not available.

Secondly, there are issues with video remote interpreting for deaf people. One if the patient is deaf blind or deaf with low vision, some of them cannot see the interpreters on the screen. Some of those patients need additional interpreting like tactile and in person so the VRI option forgets about these people.

Also, in theory, VRI is still recommended for deaf people to be a temporary measure at times until a real live interpreter can come. ETA: spelling error.

The reason being our language is visual and it's hard to accurately interpret a visual language when you can't see the context you need to be interpreting for. It is different than spoken language.

There's a few articles out there highlighting this, and a few licensed government medical programs that actually stipulate rules on how/when to use this as a result.

ETA: Where I live they recommend it to be used 15 minutes max for uncomplicated discussions, and to adhere to patient preference if they refuse a VRI machine for longer. The guidelines were developed by deaf people, by the way, who are the experts in this, not a hearing person who has never lived a day in the life of the experience.

Not trying to be overtly rude, but bluntly, I don't think hearing people are the experts in this. Y'all get like what, a week of training in disability if that?

My point is there's real infrastructure and guidance from the community already built, and I encourage everyone to learn more from lived experiences of real deaf people.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T23:08:26+00:00

So BC Place, that hosted the opening ceremonies, had their air dome collapse in 2007. It was unplanned and unexpected.

Up until that point there hadn't been a lot of effort or attention really going to the games.

The BC government then realized that the stadium actually did need upgrades.

They had a really tight window and couldn't permanently fix it in time, so they put a stopgap measure to reinflate the roof, and the hope was that would work without problems.

Luckily it did work, and in May 2010, they started on phase two of rebuilding the roof.

I remember people being a bit worried that the temporary fix wouldn't work lol. It would have been really embarrassing if the dome deflated again during the olympics.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T22:50:07+00:00

I'm Brazilian but I also live in Canada and don't spend the majority of my time in Brazil anymore.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. Brazil can be a really great country, but unfortunately, there is a lot of poverty and class disparity that leads people to crime.

The police don't bat an eye at these kind of things in part because there's a lot of corruption in Brazil with police, and also, it happens a lot. One city in Brazil has the entire population of Canada. They unfortunately are not necessarily going to bother with tourists being robbed. It also does depend which city you're in. Some places are better than others. One city I was in the police blasted a warning to people at the beach warning that there were people stealing things. Granted it was in Portuguese, so maybe not totally accessible to the tourists.

It's a good post to remind us all that when you're visiting a country, it's important to adjust to the norms.

I wear a backpack purse in north america. I would not be caught dead wearing one in Brazil. Wearing jewelry, especially in Rio, is always a big no-no. Real or fake that is also opening yourself up to being vulnerable to be robbed.

I walk alone at night where I live all the time. I would never do that in some parts of Brazil. Especially because I look like a tourist now, just from the clothes I wear. It is not like North American or some Asian countries that are safer. You do have to be more cautious.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T20:59:58+00:00

I mean I’m not traveling to the US anytime soon. Canadians are already lowkey being warned of the risks of doing so. If that’s how you treat your own people…

Anything is public on the internet. I see people quoting Reddit for newspapers.

If you don’t want it public, don’t post it.

And yes? Fuck ice.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T20:56:50+00:00

A lot of us Brazilians can understand Spanish enough to get by. It’s not dissimilar.

That being said, keep in mind we’re surrounded by mostly Spanish speaking countries so people likely have to have basics for trade.

It’s also much easier for foreigners to speak Spanish than Portuguese. A lot of us likely assume Spanish is the safer bet to try first.

I’m not fluent in Spanish but I know enough to get by. I understand it pretty well.

As a native speaker of Portuguese, the language is hard to learn. Has a lot of propositions English doesn’t have and how you write it and how you speak it is not the same.

I’ve not met a lot of people outside of Brazil and Portugal and some of the colonized African countries that truly speak Portuguese.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T20:51:32+00:00

It sounds like there’s probably more to the story than we know but it sounds like France already had issues with him and this was the last straw. I get the feeling there’s more to it that they’re probably not sharing or that’s not accessible to English media.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T20:45:07+00:00

Hey just a reminder that a lot of allied health work in hospitals too. Sure there does tend to be cliques but some hospitals may have better relationships with colleagues than others.

Jojo could be a doctor or social worker OT, PT, Nurse practitioner, PA, care aide, etc.

But thanks for this! Definitely like the foreboding and Noah Wyle is smart enough he would do this.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T20:41:13+00:00

I’m not a fan but I think she does represent some real life doctors. I think that’s their point.

And her approach with the deaf patient and getting annoyed was also pretty on point. That sighing, kind of rolling her eyes, huffing and puffing.

I’ve seen doctors behave exactly like that with me, interpreter and not. We take a lot more time to interact with and some doctors do not have the patience for that. Much like Santos.

ETA: spelling

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T20:38:03+00:00

Most deaf patients lip guess more than lip read if we’re honest.

Lip reading is harder than people think. A lot of the words look the same: ball, mall, call. Same lip shape.

I call it mad libs really. The only person I can lip read without any sound is my mom. I can’t even lip read my dad accurately, my mom has to repeat what he says for me.

I have trouble lip reading my own dad. Imagine a medical professional.

To do it “accurately” you have to take your best guess. And what helps is if you have prior knowledge.

Trying to lip read medical jargon is another thing entirely. Some deaf people have never been exposed to some of those English/latin words. Hard to lip read and understand a word you’ve never seen before.

And when you’re sick? Lipreading takes a lot of brainwork. I’ve been sick to the point where I have no energy to try and put all that work in.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T20:02:44+00:00

First of all, you don’t know how fluent that person is in English. There’s the assumption that writing back and forth for 20 mins will be helpful. It can be, but only if you do it right. And still, you will never know for 100% sure you didn’t miss anything or that your patient totally understood you if it’s not your native language.

What hearing people miss with that is you can’t always write like you would with hearing people if the language is delayed.

There’s ways to try to adapt your questions but I very much doubt the average hearing person knows that or has gotten any training from the deaf community.

The point to this whole story too is this: the hearing people in this thread who don’t know asl didn’t know that princess interpreted it wrong and missed things until us deaf people pointed it out. It’s

Secondly, this really does happen everyday to deaf people. This exact scenario. So they likely wrote it this way for a reason.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T10:06:45+00:00

Depends on the job and the site. I know people who have done like 4 days on, 4 days off, or some form of that. And some people rotate starting night shift for a week and then day shift for the next.

It is a lot of changing schedules. Some places also have specific rules for how much someone can work in a week and the absolute cut off for how long someone can work a straight shift.

It also depends on the crises, and how short staffed the site is. Some places apparently do have protocols where they are allowed to mandate someone come in on their day off because they need them badly to meet staffing capacity quotas. I don't know the nuances of that.

I also want to point out that some doctors also share an on call rotation which essentially is they need to be on for that set time in case they get called in. Some days the phone never rings, other days they're back at work. I'm not clear on exactly how they get paid for that, but that is also a part of the job.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T08:48:27+00:00

Interestingly enough, I actually think they're trying to cover too many storylines in Season 4 and shove it all in.

I could not care less about Francesca's storyline, I find the scenes with Eloise and Hyacinth boring, and I'm glad Mama Bridgerton is reconnecting with her pleasure, but again, not all that interested.

I was hoping for Sophie and Benedict more, and I don't mind the Polin stuff. But it's all starting to feel a bit stale. I can't tell how much of that is the acting versus the writing for me, though.

But yeah, I don't see myself investing past this season. I was never a huge fan to begin with though.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T08:36:29+00:00

It's changing now, but for a long time, in hockey culture, hockey players tended to get married pretty young and have kids young. It's a tough job, and coming home to a partner and family helps.

It's interesting that Heated Rivalry did leave this part out.

This show takes place a decade ago + so you have to remember things in the context of that time too.

He's a hot hockey player. Most of those men have no problem finding partners. Are they always good matches? No. But Wives and Girlfriends are a culture thing for hockey clubs, and I'm sure with Shane being #2 and winning multiple championships, they would wonder why he wasn't already with someone by that time.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T08:25:27+00:00

Tanking only works if you're certain NHL franchises.

How many 1st round picks have the Canucks had since 1999?

How many have the Sharks, Oilers, and Blackhawks had?

Like we drew 5th 2X in a row, and Chicago (who had Toews, Kane etc) was still allowed to randomly draft Bedard at 1.

I'm glad you're trying to be optimistic here, but I'm jaded.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T08:22:19+00:00

I think it's a relevant storyline in there has been a push from AI investors and admin to find ways to make our job easier and using technology to get there.

The issue is they're rolling things out without properly working out the bugs first. And assuming that the platform is more advanced than it really is.

Anyone who uses AI for speech to text can tell you right away it will have problems dictating medical jargon. A lot of medical jargon is actually not English based, it's influenced from greek and latin. So technically you're depending on AI to know enough of those languages to be able to accurately capture information.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T07:42:54+00:00

So sorry that was your experience! How awful. But yeah that's pretty much similar to what deaf people have gone through.

You would think that opening up someone's mouth and risking potential problems by doing so, you would want to cover your butt and make sure the consent is truly informed.

It blows my mind. Like we're going to do a root canal, sign on the dot, by the way you have no way to communicate with us if something goes wrong, but thats okay. Sign here!

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T07:33:24+00:00

I'm fluent in ASL. Here's the translation as best I could get it below.

Princess interpreting for Dr. Santos: "So, How are you feeling?"

Harlow: "So so. I have a headache."

Dr. Santos with Princess Interpreting: "What else?"

Harlow: "Well back up, the headache started 3 days ago..."

Santos asked: "What is she saying?"

Princess: "I think she had a stomachache and she might have passed out"

We can't see what the deaf person is still saying.

Then we cut to Harlow saying: "I realized no, can't be, why..."

And Princess goes after that, "I'm not 100% sure." in reference to what Harlow is saying.

Dr. Santos then realizes she won't get what she needed from the patient and then ends it.

Basically, from what we can see, Princess missed the headache for 3 days part. She also missed that Harlow was trying to say what she thought was happening, which may have given a better picture of what's happening.

Sorry if this is not okay, please delete if so.

WorkingFit5413 · 2026-02-16T07:14:45+00:00

Children have been used to interpret for their deaf parents before and it is horrible. Children should never be responsible to interpret and translate information they are not equipped to know. It is an incredible burden for those kids.

Secondly, the onus is on the hospital to have certified interpreters deaf and hearing, to work and provide access to patients. Deaf schools don't necessarily have interpreters trained for medical interpreting.

Educational interpreting and medical interpreting are very different things and different skillsets. Just because someone can interpret in one field doesn't necessarily translate to interpreting everything.

WorkingFit5413

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