LESSONS FROM THE FIELD:
THE LOUISVILLE KIDNEY MAPS
PROJECT
Nina Vasavada, MD, and Lina Mackelaite, MD
A
s voices of attentive medical students
interacting with community members fill
the air, an enthusiastic
second-year medical
student sits down with
a middle-aged African
woman who speaks no English. She is one of the many medically
underserved individuals here in Louisville who has come to the
day’s health screening event. “How old are you?” we hear the student
question, with no specific answer. “How-old-are-you?” she repeats,
gently and professionally, with different tones of voice and hand
gestures, trying to collect what she thought was a simple data point.
The pleasant African woman smiles politely but does not answer the
question. Another student comes to help, and both students search
Google Translator on their smartphones. The woman is not able
to articulate what her native language is, and the medical students
lead her to a large world map painted on the wall. She indicates that
she is from a small African country; the students search diligently
for various African languages, but are not able to communicate
with the women to learn her age. The waiting line of participants
slowly grows impatient, and so the student skips that question and
proceeds with measuring the woman’s vital signs and selected labs.
With this simple experience, students see a true-to-life example of
one of the most relevant concepts in health care delivery: lack of
the ability to communicate is one of the most fundamental barriers
to effective care.
(continued on page 8)
SEPTEMBER 2015
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