The ASA, in collaboration with the Eastern Health Language Services Department in Victoria, is delighted to launch the first of a series of language translation handbooks specifically developed to help Anaesthetists and their patients communicate both medical history and medical terms and procedures.
This first handbook, the English-Mandarin Anaesthesia Translation Handbook, assumes intermediate Chinese language skills and will provide more confidence for Chinese-speaking clinicians to approach routine conversations with their patients regarding anaesthesia procedures.
The handbook has been developed as an aid to help with clinician-patient communication and is not intended as a replacement for in-person or telephone interpreter services. The handbook should be seen as complementing existing available language interpretation services. We hope our members find this handbook useful and plan to roll-out more resources featuring other languages.