The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/1257392
@Linguist_CIOL JunE/JuLY The Linguist 7 FEATURES Thebig idea Q What is Cardmedic in a nutshell? A It's a free resource helping frontline healthcare staff in the coronavirus pandemic to communicate with critically ill patients through PPE (personal protective equipment) using simple flashcards. And it's also an up-skilling resource for staff who have been redeployed outside their usual realm of clinical practice. Q How did the idea come about? A I read about a patient with coronavirus who was terrified when he couldn't understand what staff were saying to him through PPE. I realised that writing notes for patients was impractical long term, but maybe we could provide an A-Z of common topics. Q How did this develop into Cardmedic? A I launched it on 1 April, within 72 hours of having the idea. I'm on maternity leave and unable to be on the frontline, and my husband has worked as a web designer, so he made a template using Squarespace. We wanted it to be simple with a clean layout, easy-to-read font and space breaks between paragraphs. Q What is your background? A I'm an anaesthetist with experience in critical care, and my husband has a degree in Communications with a background in e-Commerce. We've got three young children. Q How is Cardmedic funded? A We used our savings to cover the start-up costs for the domain name and hosting, but a charitable group in my department has since agreed to fund this. A private donor came forward to pay for version 1 of the app development, and we are continuing to apply for funding. We have to generate enough money to be sustainable while remaining free for the end-user. Q Who has worked on the project with you? A A wonderful medical student, Scarlett, is now helping, and we are partnering with the university of Brighton too. The Department for International Trade has been an incredible resource. We reached out to people and they offered their services for free: SiteSpeaker is providing our read-aloud function for patients who can't read; A Million Monkeys is our fabulous app developer, found through Wired Sussex; Weglot and Language Connect offered the translations; Grow Global advised us from a user accessibility viewpoint; and Brighton and Sussex university Hospitals, where I work, have been extremely supportive. Q How did you let people know it exists? A I've not used social media much before but I was encouraged to join Twitter. I focused on who was responding to our tweets. It's been a goldmine of support, useful contacts and people spreading the word. How Dr Rachael Grimaldi launched a free service to improve communication difficulties during the pandemic Q It is available in 10 languages: how did you choose which languages to offer? A We looked at the most widely spoken languages in the uk and across the world, and opted for a combination. We wanted to make sure it was accessible globally. We now know that 60% of users are in the uk, 15% in Europe and 25% in the rest of the world. Q How did you do the translations? A Initially by machine translation, but we are now working with translators at Language Connect and other volunteers. We hope to have at least 30 languages, accurately translated by humans, within a few weeks. Q What's next for Cardmedic? A We are working with speech and language therapists, learning disability nurses, communication specialists, the Royal Association for Deaf People, Signly and Sign Live to develop accessibility by incorporating images and sign language videos. We are exploring Cardmedic's role in education and translation, including in refugee camps. www.cardmedic.com BEDSIDE SUPPORT NHS staff use Cardmedic with a patient (main); and Dr Grimaldi with the free resource (inset)