 Hi everybody, my name is Boris. I'm a first-year physician-assistant student, almost a second-year physician-assistant student. We have a couple of months left in didactic, and then we start rotations, and I really can't tell you how excited I am to finally start clinical rotations. So we've got about four weeks off in my PA program right now for the summer, and I've been working as a medical assistant in the practice that I worked at before starting PA school. And having taken patient histories and looking at lab work and things like that while working as a medical assistant, it's really amazing how much I learned in the first two semesters of PA school. I remember before I started school, I saw all kinds of lab tests, imaging studies, and just nothing really made sense. I had a vague idea of what some things meant and why some things were ordered, and what certain medications did, but I really just couldn't put anything together. I didn't understand the treatment plan from start to finish, why certain things were being ordered, why certain things were not being ordered, and things like that. And I definitely don't understand everything, not even close, but working now after these first two semesters of PA school, it really is amazing how much they taught us in such a short time. It really is amazing. But anyway, the reason I'm making this video is because I had a patient interaction that really affected me today, and I just really wanted to share that and talk about a few things. So when I'm talking about this patient, I'm not going to use their age, gender, or anything remotely identifying just to protect their privacy. So I'm sorry, my language is going to be very vague and a little awkward, but I'm just trying to protect this patient's privacy. So anyway, we had this patient come in today who did not speak any English, and one of the PA's working asked me to come in and translate because the patient happened to speak Russian, and I also speak Russian since my family moved here from Russia in 1995. So anyway, they said the patient didn't speak much English, and they had some questions and concerns about a medication that the PA wanted to put them on. They wanted to ask about side effects and things like that. So I thought, OK, nice and easy. I'm just going to be in there for five minutes, explain the side effects, maybe see if they have any questions, and that'll be that. Well, what actually happened is I was in the room for 15, maybe close to 20 minutes because this patient really opened up and started talking about all kinds of symptoms and concerns and all kinds of things that they never really shared before today. And so after this patient interaction, the PA told me that they had never seen this patient open up like this. They said that in the past when they were speaking with the patient, even through a translator, the patient would always basically just be like, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, OK. They never really opened up. They never talked much. They could just tell that they weren't getting through to this patient. And so today, it was just night and day. The patient talked a lot. They talked about all their concerns. They were very receptive to our solutions. They had tons of questions, and I think what really made a difference is having somebody there in the room with them who not only spoke their language, but also understood their culture and could really just relate to this patient. So I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes. It seems like every quote I end up falling in love with is from Nelson Mandela. So this one's no different. It's from Nelson Mandela. And the quote says, when you talk to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head. When you speak to a man in his language, it goes to his heart. And I don't think I've ever seen that quote be more true than today with this particular patient. And it just got me thinking, most doctor's offices and emergency rooms have translation services available, either through the phone, like language line, or through an iPad kind of a service where you can get a translator to video conference with you and the patient. So language barriers really are not as big of an issue as I'm sure they used to be. But I really think there's something special about someone who understands the language and also the culture being in the room with the patient. I'm sure that when this patient was seen in the past, the providers used language line and the patient just never really opened up like they did today. So it wasn't a translation issue. It was something deeper than that. And that just got me thinking about how important it is to quality patient care, especially for patients who don't speak English or even if they do speak English, but they're from an underrepresented population in the United States. How important it is for a provider or any medical personnel to be able to relate to that patient. So that's just the background of what happened today. And now I have a call to action for you. If you are bilingual or even if you're not bilingual, but you're from an underrepresented population in the United States, I really want you to consider getting a job in health care, whether it's a doctor, a nurse practitioner, a PA, an RN, an LPN, a CMA, a CNA. There's so many different jobs in health care and you don't have to be a doctor. Just having more people in general working in health care who either speak different languages or are from underrepresented populations and groups that can speak to and relate to patients who speak those languages and who are from those groups. I think it would just immensely improve the level of patient care that we can give to people. So if I just described you, I really hope you'll consider a job in health care. I know usually on this channel, I focus on the physician assistant career, you know, getting into PA school, writing a good essay for PA school, interviewing for PA school. But in this case, I just want to take a moment and say that there are so many other different health care jobs out there and they're all equally important. Everybody has a role, health care as a team and everybody's role is really important. So anything you can do in health care really counts. Of course, some jobs have a much higher barrier of entry like PA school, medical school are really hard to get into, nursing school is hard to get into, but there are some jobs to just get your foot in the door in health care that are not that difficult to get. A CNA certificate only takes about a month to get and there's always CNA jobs hiring. A medical assistant certificate only takes a couple months to get and there's always medical assistant jobs I can attest to that. So I'm just going to ask one more time. If you speak more than one language, if you're from an underrepresented population in the United States, I'm really asking you to consider a job in health care. Anyway, guys, that's it for this video. If you liked the video, please click the like button, subscribe to my channel, share this video with anybody you think can get some value out of it and anybody you know that's bilingual or from an underrepresented population to maybe get them to consider working in health care so we can improve the patient care for everybody in this country. That's all I've got for today. It looks like a beautiful day out. Can't wait to go play with my dogs, have some dinner. It's just going to be a good day. All right, I'll see you guys in the next video. Thank you so much for watching.