Coming from immigrant backgrounds, we and many around us have experienced language barriers while seeking medical help. For some, especially the elderly, the language barrier leads to a hesitancy in seeking medical help when needed. Such hesitancy can lead to delayed treatment, reduced quality of life, and worst of all, death. 

In addition to the language barrier, there are also existing biomedical knowledge gaps among immigrant communities. Sometimes when symptoms show up, many may not know these symptoms indicate bodily abnormalities that require immediate medical attention. 

Lastly, as a society, we are still lacking cultural sensitivity in medicine and health care. As immigrants often come from another cultural background, it is frustrating to see how our society undermines immigrant experiences and ignores cultural sensitivity in medical care. This can be an even more prominent problem in mental health industries. 

At A Med Thing or Two (AMToT), we are dedicated to overcoming the language barrier in medical communications and bridging the cultural and informational gap in health literacy among Chinese immigrants by: 

1. Providing accurate, language-accessible, and up-to-date medical information that is easy to understand for immigrants in Canada. 

2. Advocating timely visits to family physicians in the presence of pain or discomfort that affects one’s daily functions. 

3. Promoting the understanding of various medical topics, including but not limited to: necessity of frequent physical examinations, early screening and diagnosis of diseases, patient autonomy, medical decision-making… 

4. Addressing the importance of enhanced medical communication. 

Currently, we are still at Stage 1 of our organization, which means that most of us still come from a uniform ethnical background and our language abilities are still limited. In future, we are hoping to expand our content to more languages so that immigrants outside of Chinese languages can also read and enjoy our articles!  

The beautiful souls behind AMToT

(by the order of joining the organization)