Effective Note-Taking Tips for Medical Interpreters: The Rosan Method Explained

hello and welcome to unwind sessions where right after my shift i give the highlights of my workday

and answer any questions that might have announced at a previous session my name is juan i am an english spanish

medical video remote consecutive interpreter with over four years of experience today

is tuesday june 29 2021 and i took a total of 32 sessions today it was a mix like

always video sessions and audio sessions i took way more video sessions like always

but there were quite a few audio sessions as well

between uh well between my whole shift so it was uh pretty good today and it was a

pretty straightforward day there were no new words today but there were a couple of things that i

would like to talk about so the first call of the day today was a meal order so

if you guys have seen my previous videos you've probably seen you've probably seen the video where

i've told you that i really dislike the meal orders i really don't like the meal orders because

some like some of the dishes some of the names of the dishes i have never heard before in my life and

sometimes like when they translate them like into spanish and they're reading

off the spanish menu like i've never heard the dish before and then it's like a real funky

translation most of the time so like i'm just lost like half of the time i don't even know what they're

talking about and i just interpret literally but when it comes to dishes like

uh like most of like some one thing could uh mean another thing

like uh for example well um there is a uh like i remember i i think it was on durian um from

on the wrestler from el salvador there's a dish called uh for example chicken with slices right

like uh if you were to go ahead and to tell someone in english well i would like some chicken with slices

and they'll be like slices of what right because um like some

this the names of some dishes like uh they're just uh so like they're different or there's some weird or

they're implied and people know what they are for example um chicken with slices is

chicken with banana slices now to uh somebody that knows his dish well of course they're gonna know it right

but for example me that i didn't know it and this was not an order but it was just something that i remembered

um of course uh when they order and you say chicken with slices well they're not gonna know what

they're talking about right unless they already know what the dish is like for example this happened to me

with peach cobbler i remember when they told me cobbler i was like what what i'm sorry like um i know i

looked it up and then i just saw and i just saw the picture like when i oh one thing whenever i'm looking up names

of dishes i never never uh looking lingy i'm not trying to translate the i'm trying to

get a picture of my mind of what the dish is right because sometimes it sounds funky

and then when you put it uh and then you can see the picture on google then you know exactly

what it is right or you can just uh have an idea and go ahead and let the lady know what that is

or the other person know what that is and then they'll give you the correct answer

like i can't remember um uh i don't know i can't remember right off the top of my head but i've had

several things like that um what was it the other day uh the other day can kentucky fried steak

and i just blocked a lot of like my mind i just blocked my mind and uh i couldn't make the link just from

hearing it like because this session is just i know there's

gonna be like terminology food terminology that i'm not familiar with and hate it i hate it uh

and i'm not gonna like i don't get a lot of this call so i'm not gonna like start learning the names of food

right i'm not um uh i'm not interpreting for chefs or for kitchens right although i

do some of the time well i don't know chaps but for kitchens right but um

man like the last time that i had a kitchen call was an or a meal order call was the last

time with the other session i don't even remember what it was maybe it was last week maybe it was before so

it's not something that i get that often so i don't find it necessary to actually

look up all the names of foods but remember i do remember like um like for example

peach cobbler i'm not gonna forget that and i need to taste peach cobbler so if anybody wants to send some peach cobbler

in my way i will not be mad and i will actually mention this every time that i mention

the the meal orders i always remember peach cobbler because

it's something that i want to taste i honestly i want to taste me some peach cobbler with some

vanilla ice cream that's the picture that i've seen on google but anyways

i'm not gonna go ahead and just look up or practice foods because it's not something that i use a lot and

there's google right to back me up um but of course like this is uh

only suitable for remote interpreters right because like i i don't know how you

would do it uh if you were in person like actually looking up but

whatever um so yeah um that happened and i don't even remember um but i did struggle on some

things and uh just like basic things and i don't even remember what they were

so yeah i mean that just set off the rest of the day i had a very first

uh very uh i don't want to say awful call because i was able to get through it but

let's just say i was sweating a little bit through that session and of course right now i am fully

recharged i am not sleeping and i did not sleep through

the whole day today i was always on my toes i was able to do pretty good sessions today

there was another thing that i'm gonna mention today and it was a therapist and a patient

and then um so the therapist went ahead and asked the patient the question

and the patient didn't give give me time to interpret and the patient answered in english like

in good english and like this happened like like um

they were having a conversation and of course i didn't have time to interpret so i wasn't sure what i was supposed to

interpret you know the person was speaking good english and i went ahead and i i

[Music] like i took charchos the session right i told the therapist

i told her ma'am i'm sorry this is interpreter speaking but i can see that the patient speaks pretty

good english uh what is it that you want me to interpret because you're not giving me

time to interpret and she said no just go ahead and interpret everything and i was like

what and but okay that was her request so uh the same thing happened the therapist went ahead and

gave her utterance and then the patient answered and there was no time to interpret

and they went back and forth three times and then i was like okay well she doesn't need me

to interpret and the therapist after they had their conversation she looked at me

and then she said can you please uh summarize all of that and say it in spanish

so i was like no i'm sorry man this is interpreter but i am not able to interpret whole

conversations if you want me to interpret you are going to have to let me

interpret after one of you stop speaking because i will not be able to do that

and then the therapist went okay not a problem let me just summarize for you what i need you to say and then just

interpret and then i summarize what i was needed to say and then i interpreted it

and on the following sentence the therapist spoke and then uh the the little girl or the

yeah the teenager uh she was going to go ahead and answer the the question but then the therapist stopped

her he said wait we need to give him time to interpret so i was like yes thank you finally i can get some work

done so i went ahead and i interpreted it and then

the girl went ahead and answered it in english so she gave me time to interpret the

thing that was in english and at this point i honestly i didn't know what was going on i was like

why am i interpreting for the patient if the patient speaks perfect english

but of course that is what was asked of me and i was doing what was asked of me and

in the back of my head i'm thinking all right maybe the patient does not speak that good english maybe

she uh is worried she's gonna miss something or something i mean you never know so

i mean i didn't judge i didn't question but in the back of my mind i was like why am i doing this so

i just interpreted it and it turns out that the mother of the patient was also there

so i was interpreting for the mother but i did not know i was interpreting for the mother until the mother spoke

like the the therapist didn't tell me anything i never introduced myself to the mother

nothing it was only the therapist and the patient until the mother spoke then i was like

oh well that makes sense i'm interpreting for the mother not for the patient or

for the therapist so like i was like okay all right this makes sense

and then i was able to get on through the session and after that it was just a regular

session no problems after that but yeah that just really caught me off guard and for a while

like probably 10 minutes went by that i was interpreting for this session and i didn't know what was going on

and it just seemed so bizarre but at the end of course i got my answer and i was able

to get through the session and i just thought that i wanted to share this with you like

there's gonna be times when you are going to ask uh things that you are not going to know

why you're getting asked those things but you have to do it you have to do it because you don't know

you don't know what's going on like in this example i didn't know that the mother was there

but there have been other times when the patient speaks perfect english and the i go ahead and i tell them if

they need me and then the patient doesn't feel comfortable letting me go because

there's some terminology that they're not used to especially medical terminology so they

asked me to stay so i thought this was the case but it wasn't

so i mean there's a world of surprises out there with each session and that's why i wanted to mention this

so moving on uh today i'm going to answer one of our viewers questions and her

name is julie [Music] and melian hope i said that correctly

and she says we're not nauseous i am a new interpreter note taking is hard for me could you

please give me some tips and of course i will gladly give you some tips

i am going to assume you are new to um my onboard sessions and if that is the case i'm gonna go

ahead and i'm going to refer you to some previous online sessions all of the online sessions that say

uh note-taking memory retention there's one that says uh improving memory and then special

things and improving memory or something like that uh so just go ahead and look

through all of the online sessions and uh look for the ones that have note-taking in the title

or the ones that have uh memory retention or improving memory or something like that something to do with

memory or note-taking definitely go ahead and look at those videos because i am not going to be

repeating any of the information from the preview videos what i have said is that whenever

somebody asks me uh so i've already explained what i know and now that you're asking information

on note-taking what i actually went ahead and did i researched some materials some new materials so that i

can actually give you new information that way i can learn new things and that way you

can learn new things right and i don't repeat the same thing in my videos i keep it fresh

all the time so let's get to it uh what i'm going to talk about today is the roseanne

rozan method for note-taking and he has seven principles now this is a

book that was written like in the 60s so it has to the uh the test of time people still reference that uh note-taking

system to this day so it's good and when i started interpreting i was fortunate enough to find this book and i

read it and i have some good information now i don't really use all of the information from

his method i've actually developed my own method which

i've explained in other videos or i've explained how to improve your note-taking

i don't think i really explained my method but i've given you some hints as to that

i really want to make video series or whenever i have time which seems impossible right now

but in the future explain expect a video series from my note-taking method the one that i use

so expect that in the future but for now i'm gonna go ahead and i'm gonna give you those seven

principles of the rosen method now principle number one he says to um note down the ideas

and not the words and this is something very very important as interpreters you should be

interpreting the idea and not the word do not get caught up on words

and actually if you interpret ideas you are going to find a way that for example maybe

a lot of words and i'll get through to this uh later because i have to explain it in

more detail uh so for example like um maybe you said i'm gonna go back and instead

of i'm gonna go back you put only back right and that is going to remember that

i'm gonna go back right so the idea is back right what is the idea if i'm going to go back

well the idea is going back right so you don't really need to put i am going to go

back or i'm going to go back no you just put go back right really because that's all

that you need like it just gets summarized into all of that and that is something very important i

might have mentioned it on the other videos i might have not i i'm not sure but if i didn't well i'm

mentioning it now remember that you interpret ideas and not

word for word all right so that is going to save your life another thing that the rosen method

talks about is abbreviation now um i'm gonna get to it and then i'm

gonna talk about uh why i don't use this uh but i mean as if you're new

into the note-taking um go ahead and try everything and i'm honest here i'll try everything because not

everything is gonna work for you but maybe if you get one little thing out of this book that's gonna be perfect

and uh maybe you read some more stuff maybe you watch my videos and then you pick out one little thing from each

thing and then all of a sudden now you have your own method right

made from all of these methods of other people so yeah that is going to be

uh what is going to help you most if you can actually gather all of the information from

note-taking and then just pick whatever uh specific things work for you and

i've actually mentioned that in in other videos as well so the rosen method says that only write

down whole words if they only have four or five letters to them and

everything else should be abbreviated now his abbreviations say that you should only write the first

letters and the last letters now uh for example i'm to give you an example right here for example the

word connected right uh here it is connected so the rosen method would

abbreviate it like this c o n and then uh like a little notation on top e d

to um to indicate that it's in the past so it's con e d and uh to be more clear i would

actually write it c-o-n-n and the e-d right so it wouldn't make a confusion

because if i see con ed i don't know what i'm gonna think about contained connected

things like that right and he mentioned that you should do it like that so you don't have a confusion

and uh i like to me actually being conscious and using his method

of abbreviation just is going to make me stop taking notes and actually thinking about

how to take notes so i don't think that i'm going to be able to do it i don't use it for that reason and uh i

have my own style i don't know how to describe it i'll probably do it in a future video

but um his methods of abbreviation seems hard to me maybe it doesn't seem hard to you and if

you're just starting well your mind is fresh and you don't have those neural connections just yet

so you could probably get away with it and you can probably learn it and you could probably benefit from it

but me personally i just find it too hard like i'm gonna be writing notes or i'm gonna

be using the rosen methods of abbreviation so that is just me and uh

okay moving on from that uh one thing that i wanted to note while i was um

taking this information is that all literature and note-taking mentions therefore like if they used it a lot but

honestly in my whole career as an interpreter i had never used the word therefore in

any of my notes i have never heard any client or anyone using therefore

or having to interpret therefore so i would say they give too much credit to therefore

uh and in one um note-taking book there was actually like you could write it down as three thoughts

like like i don't know you're familiar with let me that look i'm like three thousand

ah so yeah like those three dots signify therefore um so

yeah i mean um like for that's why i tell you like read everything and then just pick whatever works for you i've

never used therefore in my life and i still remember it that is three three dots and i've never used it so

there's gonna be a lot of information that probably you will never use but it's good

it's good to know it another thing from the rosen method is link so

what are links uh from his literature is words like why you know like for example

um i don't know bad example uh for example linking words uh for example if instead

of putting uh things like for example therefore like uh you do this

and therefore this happens right like instead of uh um man i don't even know what i'm saying oh

like link where's that there was a lot of words like at why and a lot of other words that are

links that actually are going to help you remember the story better for example if um

yeah let's use the y example why not so let's just say that uh you're trying to explain something and

it's very hard trying to uh it's very hard trying to make up examples off the top of my head i should

have really thought this through before i'm doing this but i'm gonna try my best so

yeah let's take that example it's really hard writing examples right off the top of my head so i am

gonna try my best okay so maybe for your note taking a hard right

example therefore try my best or best right like you just summarized

everything with a linking word that was therefore which i've said i've never used before

but it helped me with this example so there's gonna be like

other linking words like at um for example uh uh i really need you to come to

son soul street at 5 00 a.m right so you're right uh so-and-so street

and then at and then just uh the time and whatever right so uh there are

words that uh you can use to link events that will summarize a lot of things

and uh i'll be giving you more examples in the future i just um for the sake of time i don't have that

much time i just decided to do it like this and i was going to skip right through

the part but i it's uh it's important another thing is negation

and negation and adding emphasis so um negation for example i've already explained this

in some of my other notes and uh where is it it's here for example not okay instead of writing

not or no you're going to write okay and then you're going to write a line through it

to indicate that is no like for example um not

going you could put going and then just strike a line right through it right and that means

not going so it will save you the not or the no and that is something that is going to

save you a lot of time and another thing that the rosen method mentions is

emphasis for example what is a interesting interesting right uh so interesting in the rosen method would

be abbreviated like this int and then an n g and uh to actually go ahead and say

uh very interesting would be like just a line and then in and in and extremely interesting

would be two lines right and that will add emphasis oh another thing that i

just get passed with the links on in the rosen method is actually

i don't use this uh but uh for example languages that are gender sensitive for example in spanish

it could be la veve or el bebe for example if is you put a little m saying that it's

mayo or that is female and i have it here in english

like baby male baby female right because i take my notes in english so maybe if i want to say it in spanish

and i'm gonna interpret it for spanish because spanish is gender sensitive i could put baby and

male to remember that it is a male baby and not a female baby right because whenever you say

that means male whenever you say la veve that means is female so um i actually thought that was kind of

cool and i don't use it i don't know if i'll remember to use it

but yeah that just seemed very nice and it makes a lot of sense i will let you know in the future if i

really do use it or not i i don't think i'll be using it though um i don't know i just i think i

remember that stuff but hey if it works for you it works for you right

uh go ahead and adopt that if it works for you another thing with the links is uh for

example equal to are not equal to this is another uh

linking word as an example uh for example uh yeah i don't know i can't think of some examples right off the top

of my head but this is like uh this is different from this right

instead of actually going ahead and writing uh this is different from this you can just put this

and then not equal this right and another thing for the links is right here like for example

if you said we've been over this so then you just put a line that is over and this

to indicate that we've been over this and for example right here after this

so that's actually like a little um a little uh tip that is actually good and i do

use those on my notes i really do use those on my notes and another thing is that to never write

the same word twice for example i have an example here and i've noticed that and i've said that

before for example this is a word and then no no no no and then they mention the word again

instead of writing the word again just make a line to point towards that note and uh

let's see what else yeah i think i'm just about over another thing that he says

is vertically writing the notes uh like for example like this and i do use that now with this uh

uh with this lcd pad i was not using it before and uh yeah so this is going to make you

uh write the nose down uh faster and another thing that he mentions is uh using the notes in shift i didn't

understand that very well but it says that like you should write an idea and then just shift it and then

write it like that or something like that i honestly i

looked up so several examples and i couldn't get like the idea behind this so

i'm gonna owe you on i'm gonna owe you an explanation on that one um but yeah it looks like that i'll

probably uh show it on another video or something so yeah that's pretty much it

uh for me today and i was able to get some nice tips that i had already forgotten about the rosen method

and i'm just gonna end it right there because i don't like my videos going over 30 seconds because i have to render

them and it takes so much time so thank you for watching please leave your questions on the comments and i

will answer some of them on the next session i will be here tomorrow uh thank you for watching please like

and subscribe if you liked the video and have not done so for more content and don't forget to share

happy interpreting goodbye and it's not stopping don't stop