Making The Most Of It

Ashley Johnson and John Ross with a copy of EcoLatino

by John Ross

With the demands made on faculty, there is usually no incentive for accepting the task of doing directed reading classes with undergraduate Honors students. The weekly one-on-one meetings, the extra preparation and the paperwork may go unappreciated and unrewarded unless the student's work and enthusiasm bring a spark to project, then it all becomes a worthwhile and enriching experience for both student and professor. Such was the case with Ashley Johnson during the busy Fall semester.

Ashley is graduating senior and with a Pre-med and Spanish double major. She came to me with a proposal to do a directed reading to study the special problems providing medical care to the Spanish-speaking in Athens . Although she had a very limited area of study: the practices and techniques of translating in the medical context, she quickly became aware of the many ancillary problems. Her bibliography broadened and her visits to medical professionals generated many more topics of conversation than the original line of questioning about medical translation.

The resulting study came to include a survey of Athens providers of multilingual, multicultural medical care in the region's public and private sectors, with names of contacts, operating schedules and addresses of each clinic. Ashley's original problem of study was not lost in the work; it was just superbly contextualized with a discussion of people and institutions that have dealt with Spanish spoken in the medical context and the many resources they use to overcome the language and cultural barriers in the provision of healthcare.

Seeing the scope of her work and the quality and presentation of its information, I encouraged her to contact Enrique Carrión of the Eco Latino to investigate the possibility of publishing a version of this study as an article in Athens ' most important bilingual publication. He accepted it and Ashley then had to translate it into English. The resulting article will be published as a series of articles over the next four issues of the Eco , and I hope you make the time to read it.

This experience has provided Ashley the privilege to make a difference to the benefit of the Spanish-speaking community in the Athens/Clarke County region and to her future career as a healthcare provider. If ever one needed a reason to take on the extra work of a directed reading, I submit this case as evidence that it is time well spent and can allow the industrious student to make the most of her education.

Athens EcoLatino website