A Cautionary Tale: Chinese as a Hobby

[roddy]

There is (or at least was, haven't seen anything for a while) a lot of recruitment of nurses in China for work overseas. Reading English language journals. Work or study overseas. Dealing with foreign patients. Fun. I'd imagine English is a part of any medical degree course - it's a part of any other degree, like it or not.

[gato]

Most Chinese doctors practice "Western medicine" and therefore need to read Western medical literature, which are mostly written in English.

[Meng Lelan]

Ok, I understand now. But then again that brings us back to the situation where if you're teaching (medical or otherwise) English, then the students expect to be practicing English on you all the time, or you're seeing expat patients, then you're speaking English all the time, so then we're back to how to keep up Chinese speaking skills in an English environment in China. I don't know if that would happen, maybe yes or maybe no.

[taylor04]

Well assuming he has a normal teaching job, everything outside of teaching would be Chinese practice. If he has learned, or will learn some medical language in Chinese he can explain some vague terms using Chinese as well.

[abcdefg]

Most Chinese doctors practice "Western medicine" and therefore need to read Western medical literature, which are mostly written in English.

I have friends at the Medical University in Kunming who are studying the exact same textbooks for surgery, internal medicine, pediatrics and so on being used today in the US. I have Chinese physician friends who read many of the same English language medical journals I do here in the US.

I'd imagine English is a part of any medical degree course - it's a part of any other degree, like it or not.

I get approached informally a lot by medical friends because they feel the English taught in Chinese medical universities is inadequate to the task, especially when it comes to things like current medical terminology.

There is (or at least was, haven't seen anything for a while) a lot of recruitment of nurses in China for work overseas.

Last year I helped a couple nurses prepare for job interviews that they hoped would take them to Canada. Recently the US has been hiring more Filipino nurses because they usually already speak fairly good English.

Furthermore, some Chinese doctors would like to immigrate to an English-speaking country to practice, but must first pass licensing exams. Those exams are given in English.

But I don’t want to give away my entire long-term business plan on an open forum. (wink)

Edited December 15, 2009 at 06:56 PM by abcdefg

[animal world]

a-->g, you might also want to wear several hats and consider teaming up with a Chinese person to do medical translations. However, to be on a school's payroll as the alleged main reason for being in China will make it easier to meet visa requirements (I say alleged as the real reason for living there would be to have a jolly good time).

Hope you'll have a grand China adventure (and hey, if that means you'll forever remain a few hanzi short of advanced/fluent, who cares !)