Medical Interpreters in Korea: A Qualitative Study of Medical Tourists’ Satisfaction and the Role of Interpreters

Lo’ai Adnan Al-Farajat,정승훈,서영준 국제문화기술진흥원 2018 International Journal of Advanced Culture Technolo Vol.6 No.4

Background: As a result of the South Korean government’s medical tourism strategies, the number of UAE inbound medical tourists have the highest annual increase rate among the Middle Eastern countries. The need for medical interpreters in such cases is inevitable, especially considering the languages spoken in both countries differs. The work of a medical interpreter affects patient satisfaction, quality of care, and the UAE patients’ revisit intention. However, there is a lack of literature that focuses on the role of medical interpreters for the Arabic-speaking medical tourists in South Korea. The purpose of this study is to assess the satisfaction and the experience of UAE medical tourists in South Korea who have used medical interpretation services. Method: A descriptive exploratory design, including semi-structured interviews, was used in this study to examine factors influencing the satisfaction of UAE patients seeking medical attention in South Korea, who considered travelling exclusively for medical purposes. Eleven UAE medical tourists were selected for the interview using convenience sampling. Results: Two types of interpreters were revealed by the analysis: interpreters with Arabic as their mother tongue and interpreters with Korean as their mother tongue. Patients emphasized the origin of the interpreters and differentiated between the two types of interpreters’ professionalism, abilities, and personal skills. However, due to the huge gap between the two cultures, languages, and religions, the UAE patients mainly preferred the Arabic medical interpreters. Further, each type had certain traits that impacted the medical care process and patients’ satisfaction. Conclusion: This study shows that the South Korean government needs to focus on the training and assessment system for Arabic language interpreters. Additionally, cultural differences training for the interpreters may help to increase UEA patients’ satisfaction.

Medical Interpreters in Korea: A Qualitative Study of Medical Tourists' Satisfaction and the Role of Interpreters

Al-Farajat, Lo'ai Adnan,Jung, Seong-Hoon,Seo, Young-Joon The International Promotion Agency of Culture Tech 2018 International Journal of Advanced Culture Technolo Vol.6 No.4

Background: As a result of the South Korean government's medical tourism strategies, the number of UAE inbound medical tourists have the highest annual increase rate among the Middle Eastern countries. The need for medical interpreters in such cases is inevitable, especially considering the languages spoken in both countries differs. The work of a medical interpreter affects patient satisfaction, quality of care, and the UAE patients' revisit intention. However, there is a lack of literature that focuses on the role of medical interpreters for the Arabic-speaking medical tourists in South Korea. The purpose of this study is to assess the satisfaction and the experience of UAE medical tourists in South Korea who have used medical interpretation services. Method: A descriptive exploratory design, including semi-structured interviews, was used in this study to examine factors influencing the satisfaction of UAE patients seeking medical attention in South Korea, who considered travelling exclusively for medical purposes. Eleven UAE medical tourists were selected for the interview using convenience sampling. Results: Two types of interpreters were revealed by the analysis: interpreters with Arabic as their mother tongue and interpreters with Korean as their mother tongue. Patients emphasized the origin of the interpreters and differentiated between the two types of interpreters' professionalism, abilities, and personal skills. However, due to the huge gap between the two cultures, languages, and religions, the UAE patients mainly preferred the Arabic medical interpreters. Further, each type had certain traits that impacted the medical care process and patients' satisfaction. Conclusion: This study shows that the South Korean government needs to focus on the training and assessment system for Arabic language interpreters. Additionally, cultural differences training for the interpreters may help to increase UEA patients' satisfaction.

同音替代原則對漢字跨時空能力的影響

羅言發(Lo, In-fat),艾溢芳(Ai, Yi-fang) 한국중어중문학회 2020 中語中文學 Vol.- No.79

Chinese character simplification has achieved positive result since the 1950s. Character simplification has played a very positive role in popularizing education and promoting cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. After a comprehensive analysis of relevant materials, we believe that the efforts and results of character simplification are remarkable, but there is still room for improvement. For example, in order to speed up converting Chinese characters to alphabetic writing system, the “homonym substitution” principle was extended. The meaning of “homonym” is very clear. It refers to the phonetic system of Mandarin, but not the system of “Qieyun”, nor that of dialects.Its purpose is to reduce the amount of common Chinese characters.As a result, the simplified character system does not correspond to the phonologic system of the ancient Chinese “Qieyun”, or the phonetic systems of modern dialects. For example, two Chinese characters with different sounds in some dialects are simplified and merged into one character, such as the five groups of characters “(折)摺折” “(复)複復” “(郁)郁鬱” “(松)鬆松” “(並)并並”. Most of these groups of characters in southern dialects have different sounds, but they are simplified as the same characters. Some characters having different sounds in all dialects are also merged into one, which increases the phenomenon that one Chinese character has more than one pronunciations, such as the five groups of characters “(干)乾幹” “(斗)斗鬥” “(舍)捨舍” “(只)隻只” “(几)几幾”. Homonym substitution principle has influenced the feature that Chinese character system can extend through history and dialects. We proposed optimizations to the simplification of these ten characters, hoping to solve the problem caused by homonym substitution with minimum modification to the existing scheme.

Associations of pre-existing cardiovascular morbidity with severity and the fatality rate in COVID-19 patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Foad Alzoughool,Suhad Abumweis,Lo’ai Alanagreh,Manar Atoum 질병관리본부 2022 Osong Public Health and Research Persptectives Vol.13 No.1

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of pre-existing cardiovascular comorbidities, including hypertension and coronary heart disease, with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity and mortality. Methods: PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Scopus were searched between January 1, 2020, and July 18, 2020, to identify eligible studies. Random-effect models were used to estimate the pooled event rates of pre-existing cardiovascular disease comorbidities and odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) of disease severity and mortality associated with the exposures of interest. Results: A total of 34 studies involving 19,156 patients with COVID-19 infection met the inclusion criteria. The prevalence of pre-existing cardiovascular disease in the included studies was 14.0%. Pre-existing cardiovascular disease in COVID-19 patients was associated with severe outcomes (OR, 4.1; 95% CI, 2.9 to 5.7) and mortality (OR, 6.1; 95% CI, 2.9 to 12.7). Hypertension and coronary heart disease increased the risk of severe outcomes by 2.6 times (OR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.9 to 3.6) and 2.5 times (OR, 2.5; 95% CI, 1.7 to 3.8), respectively. No significant publication bias was indicated. Conclusion: COVID-19 patients with pre-existing cardiovascular comorbidities have a higher risk of severe outcomes and mortality. Awareness of pre-existing cardiovascular comorbidity is important for the early management of COVID-19.

Applying Hessian Curves in Parallel to improve Elliptic Curve Scalar Multiplication Hardware.

Fahad Bin Muhaya,Qasem Abu Al-Haija',Lo'ai Tawalbeh 보안공학연구지원센터 2010 International Journal of Security and Its Applicat Vol.4 No.2