Latinx doctor bridges the language gap by providing COVID-19 misinformation in Spanish

Yahoo Life Videos

Dr. Jorge Ramallo, from the the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center in Milwaukee, is doing his part to break the language barrier and build “confianza” (trust) with his patients by speaking to them in Spanish. “The patients that I see are over 90% Latinx,” he tells Yahoo Life. “Being able to talk to them in a language they understand, but also being able to relate to their culture … is one of the most rewarding things of my job.” He hosts a Spanish Facebook Live series called “Pregunte al doctor” (Ask the doctor). He hopes to dispel online misconceptions about COVID-19 and create a safe space for his patients. “Having that extra source of information from a physician that they know, that is part of their community and that speaks their language, I think has made a big difference,” he explains.

Video Transcript

JORGE RAMALLO: For those that are afraid and they don't speak English, I would say, like, one word, [SPANISH SPEECH], is to ask, to not be afraid to ask questions.

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The patients that I see are over 90% Latinx. Being able to relate to the patients on a more personal level makes them more likely to trust you. We have this concept in our culture in which we have to have [SPANISH SPEECH], which is having trust in your doctor and believing what they're saying, just because there's so much misinformation out there in social media and different venues in which people are hearing crazy things and crazy theories about COVID-19 either being fake, either being something that can be cured by, you know, maybe some weird naturopathic remedy.

Or a lot of patients telling me, you know, I got really sick, but I don't want to go to the hospital because they're killing people there. So making sure to dispel those myths by being able to talk to them in a language they understand, but also being able to relate to their culture and where they're coming from and understanding kind of, like, some-- why they might have some-- some of those misunderstandings and being able to clarify that. So that's a big challenge, and it is one of the most rewarding things of my job that I get to do.

I was born and raised in Cochabamba, Bolivia, so that is a small country in Latin America. We ended up moving to Virginia, where we already had some family there. And at the age of 14, I found myself starting high school in a new-- completely new environment, culture shock, not speaking any English. And like many of my patients that I see here in the clinic, I was thrusted into English as a Second Language classes and just expected to catch up at some point.

I made the decision to go into medicine while I was in high school actually when I was volunteering for a free clinic. I was very fortunate to be accepted into the Yale School of Medicine back in 2009, and that's when I started my journey. In terms of why the Latinx community has been hit so hard, we know that once we were starting to associate the risk factors with COVID-19 to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, then we knew that our community was going to be greatly affected.

We have a lot of patients that are essential workers, that work in construction, that work in the food industry, they work in restaurants. So for them, doing teleworking is not an option, and they have to go out. It's between paying their bills or staying at home and feeling safe. At the beginning of the pandemic, we realized that there was not enough information in Spanish out there for our patients.

And the other big challenge that we noticed is that the information kept changing. So we decided to start a Facebook Live series for our patients in which I would just talk on the mic, on video, and just talk about COVID-19, talk about what we knew, cite sources that would be reliable, and direct people to reliable sources.

I know that a lot of patients feel very lost sometimes with the amount of information that is being presented to them and just very, very scared about what it means to have COVID. So having that extra source of information from a physician that they know, that is part of their community, that speaks their language, I think has made a big difference.

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