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From: Rob.Carr@f26.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Rob Carr)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: EMS and Signing
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Date: 25 Jan 91 16:48:00 GMT
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Index Number: 13201

[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]

 JO> The problem of communicating with medical personnel at all
 JO> levels is well recognized.  I believe that hearing people
 JO> experience this difficulty also.

This is true.  Even as a medical professional, I sometimeshave to hit
the medical dictionary after an apointment with my personal physician.  He
treats me as he would treat another doctor, sometimes using terms I am not
familiar with.

 JO>                                 But I would really hate to
 JO> see Sign Friends encumbered with a flock of narrowly
 JO> specialized signs that would be used so infrequently.  These
 JO> signs might do more harm than good. The fact that you are
 JO> having difficulty locating the appropriate signs must tell you
 JO> something re their frequency of use and degree of
 JO> understanding, even within the signing deaf community.

I'm not so sure about the "more harm than good."  The confusion I've seen
when I can't communicate at all can be pretty rough.  On the other hand,
teaching EMS personnel signs that no one other than other EMS personnel
know would be profoundly useless.  There are quite a few signs that are
commonplace and useful to EMS personnel.  You can find most of them in
The Joy of Signing and A Basic Course and the other book that I keep in
my locker at work and can't remember the title of....  Words like hurt,
heart, lungs/breathing, hospital, doctor, help, etc. aren't too uncommon.

 JO> Sign Friends does support fingerspelling, and I think this may
 JO> be the answer.  IMHO, most EMS personnel should be willing to
 JO> learn fingerspelling, and this is a reliable way of
 JO> communicating with signers, whether or not they are able to
 JO> speechread.

Yeah, but it's SLOW.  I've been fingerspelling ever since 5th grade when
the girls found out that they could talk behind the teacher's back and the
guys found out we could eavesdrop on the girls.  (Or is the PC word "pre-
women?"   :-}  My fingerspelling rate is pretty decent, and it still takes
too long.  Too many medics would say "*&^% it" and just treat the patient
as if they were unconcious.  It's this tendency by medics that scares me.

Perhaps a compromise.  Nothing too technical, but keep the common medical
words in.  If I had to, I could find out if someone had dark tarry stools or
bloody sputum without the words for them  (second one's hemoptysis, and I
don't remember the word for the first!).

... Subscribe to The Journal of Disasters in Emergency Medicine: $8.00/yr

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