Translation

by John H. Degenhardt, MS, DO, FACOA

We are pleased to present this award­-winning article by John Degenhardt, MS, DO, FACOA, a runner-up in our Writing Contest. Dr. Degenhardt is an anesthesiologist practicing in Portland, Oregon.

At first, I learned Russian to keep from ­losing my mind. My wife had become ­concerned about Alzheimer’s disease and encouraged me to play the piano, learn a language, or complete crossword puzzles to combat my inevitable decline. A nurse, she had already noticed changes, she told me. Being over 50 years old and practicing anesthesiology for nearly 20 years, she claimed, had taken a subtle toll on me. “Yes, dear,” I said.

As a child of the cold war and a fan of James Bond and Boris and Natasha, I chose Russian as my preventive medicine. I soon learned that Russian is one of the most widely spoken languages on Earth. I also learned that no one I knew spoke Russian.

I started by taking an introductory evening class at our local community college. This was my first educational experience besides CME since medical school. My classmates had practical reasons for learning their Russian. Most of them were in state or local social services or had Russian employees. No one in the class appeared to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.

I progressed rapidly, learning all 33 ­letters of my new alphabet and new grammatical rules more complex than “i before e, except after c.” The best approach to learning a language is immersion, and so I fashioned my own program. Soon I was listening to CDs, tapes, Internet radio stations, and public-access television, and torturing my OR staff with Russian disco music. My wife immediately noticed the Russian language stickers that I placed on many of our household objects. When questioned about them, I said that they helped me remember, confirming her ­diagnosis.

Despite my growing knowledge, I had little real experience. That changed on Valentine’s Day.

The flower shop was full of Russians. I approached the counter, and in the hesitant broken speech of a foreigner, I spoke to the large Slavic lady behind the counter. She replied quickly. I continued in Russian, explaining, “I study every day, six months,” then tried to switch to English. “Nyet! Tolka Parrusskie! [No! Only Russian!]” she said. I immediately had an audience of immigrants, and each had shared this experience a hundred times. I was just beginning.

After that day, I looked for an opportunity to use my Russian on real Russians, and I discovered a community of 50,000 people. I met taxi drivers who were nuclear engineers, dental assistants who were maxillofacial surgeons, and other educated people from Moldavia, Ukraine, and Siberia. Many were encouraged to speak English when they realized that I shared the opposite side of our language struggle. My vocabulary expanded, and I began to pick out Slavic names from the surgery ­schedule.

The Russian translators present at our preanesthesia conferences encouraged my participation, and the patients clearly enjoyed talking to their “Russian” doctor. Although translators are often present for elective surgery, a Russian family in the emergency room visibly responds to a familiar word. My role as an anesthesiologist had often been peripheral in the communication process. As the only Russian-speaking doctor on staff, I moved to center stage.

I became a conduit for essential information, requests, and concerns. I found that a small Russian vocabulary could be arranged to include a large part of communication, more complex than crossword puzzles.

Communication is the basis for our relationships in medicine, and learning a new language gave me a better understanding. I’m a better doctor. I talk and listen more to all of my patients. My Russian is always improving, and I haven’t lost my mind.