Rabid auditory hallucinations

I work for a doctor. Prior to this job, I did quite a bit of medical work, but nothing at the register and intensity at which I have been working for the majority of the last decade. To function at a reasonably well educate layman's level, to be able to do so in two different languages, was challenge enough. To function in "doctorese" in two different languages, one of which has virtually no lexical equivalent to spoken English, has presented countless challenges, embarassments, and humorous anecdotes. I always swore that if I were to write a book about my experiences as an interpreter for a deaf physician, I would call it "Auditory Hallucinations"

Not only is the register at which people speak highly specialized, but the speed is incredible. One of the most difficult challenges is to be able to discern where one word stops and the next begins. Pair this with trying to tune my ear to what the word is when pronounced with regional and national dialects and accents, or what the hell the abbreviation or in-group reference is, and you can imagine the struggles I face.

Some of the more common struggles have been distinguishing the difference between IR and INR; figuring out why anyone would measure the patient's eyes and nose; or recognizing that the patient is on "homo, too," which incidentally has nothing to do with the patient's sexual proclivities. There are times when I hear things and I have no idea that I have indeed misheard. After all, with all the credentials and initials I have after my name, "MD" or "DO" are not included... it's not my field so I cannot really be expected to fully comprehend just what in the world someone is talking about. I just have to understand what they're saying well enough to be able to interpret it. Far be it from me to always recognize just what is being said exactly.

Today was another one of my shining moments of brilliant incompetence. The medical staff were discussing a disease that related to a presumed infectious process. The fact that the patient had recently been spelunking, swimming in subterranean pools and had the misfortune to have been bitten by a bat was not lost on me. However, when running through the differential, one of the docs made mention of the possibility that the patient might be a member of some bat club cheese-making organization. Sounded incredibly funny to me, but hey, again I'm no MD and I've certainly heard stranger things on rounds, so the fact that I indeed misheard (and therefore misintepreted) the statement didn't register. It should have, though, when my doctor looked at me with a look of "WTF?" and my coworker doubled over in laughter.

I mean, they were talking about bats after all. Who knew you could make cheese from bat milk? Cow milk and goat milk, sure. So why not bat milk? Granted you probably would only be able to make small batches, but I supposed there were bat farms somewhere that probably specialized in this sort of thing. The statement that was actually made was about the fact that the patient probably didn't belong to a bathtub cheese-making organization.

Oh. Yeah. That makes more sense....