When I came to ICO, I was amazed by how diverse my class was. My new peers were from every stretch of the United States and Canada. Something that also amazed me was how many of them spoke more than one language.
I decided to learn more about my class. I conducted a survey asking everyone if they spoke more than one language. Here is a list of the languages spoken in my class (there are many more in the other classes as well)! Prepare to be amazed:
Portuguese (2)
Polish (3)
Greek (2)
Malayalam (3)
Lithuanian
Italian
Hindi (2)
Urdu (2)
Tagalog
Gujarati (3)
Korean
Spanish (3)
Mandarin (7)
Cantonese (7)
Vietnamese
French (4)
Punjabi (3)
Albanian
German (2)
Arabic (3)
Russian
Tamil
Japanese (2)
Goidelic
Persian (4)
Hmong
Not bad, huh? It’s amazing what we can all learn from each other and how we can work with one another to give our patients the best possible care. Being in the city of Chicago, we have a very diverse patient base. This means that there are many times a translator can be useful. In the clinic, we keep an entire list of students who speak different languages in case we ever need their help. It has been working really well so far and our patients seem to greatly appreciate it. I’m excited to see what this year’s incoming class brings!