Cross-cultural communication （53）　

53）English ability of Japanese doctors
I think it was in 2004, an international convention for medical students from Asia was held in Osaka. At the time, I was involved in training for medical students and residents at my office, and I had a lot of contact with young doctors and medical students. One of them asked me to help out. At the time, I had already been chosen to be a speaker at the symposium of 2005 WONCA (World Organization of Family Doctors) conference, so I thought it would be good practice. I accepted it.

At the conference, I gave a lecture in English on the current state of primary care (general medical care) in Japan to around 30 medical students from various Asian countries. They also actively participated in the question and answer session after the lecture, and it turned out to be a very lively lecture. Unfortunately, however, there were no questions from the Japanese medical students. There was actually one brave female medical student who did ask a question, but she got stuck in her English halfway through, so I guessed what the rest of her question was going to be and supplemented it for her before answering it.

The participants in this conference came from all over Asia, including the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan. The Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia are countries where English is an official language, so the level of English was generally quite high. However, the participants from Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan also had the guts to speak up in English, even if it was a little awkward.

The Japanese students who took part in the program must have gained a clear understanding of their current level of English ability. I'm sure they will continue to improve their English ability through experiences like this.

In the case of doctors, there is no argument that those who have worked or been trained abroad in English-speaking countries have excellent English ability. However, the purpose of staying abroad varies. The majority of doctors from Japan who work abroad do so for research purposes. Research involves a lot of time spent doing experiments and writing papers, so there doesn't seem to be much time to speak in English. Therefore, it seems that English does not improve much during a few years of research work abroad. On the contrary, during clinical training abroad, especially as a resident, you are immersed in English almost 100% of the time. The morning rounds with senior residents, the subsequent presentation of newly admitted patients to the attending doctor and the question and answer session, the luncheon conference, the afternoon rounds of your own patients and the outpatient consultations several times a week - all of these are conversations in English with native speakers. If you can't communicate in English, you can't do your job at all. For clinical trainees, English is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, and an essential means at that.

However, I will admit that there are exceptions, and there are some researchers who are extremely fluent in English. When I was a resident in the early 1980s in Brooklyn, I met a doctor, Dr. H who was working in New Jersey for research, and he spoke really fluent English. He had a rich vocabulary. I often went to a bar with him in Manhattan called a piano bar, where American hostesses would serve as conversation partners, and I can still recall the witty, humorous and slightly erotic English that Dr. H used to talk with the American hostesses. However, it seems that he was quite good at English even before he went abroad for research work. I think that he had a lot of vocabulary that he learned from English lyrics like this because he was familiar with jazz and pop music in his days at medical school.

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