After several lectures each resident was given a real patient and had to perform a medical interview. The interview was videotaped and evaluated by an attending doctor and the other residents. My patient was a middle aged man. He said that he took Alka-Seltzer but he didn’t feel well. Since I didn’t know what Alka-Seltzer was then, I asked inconsequential questions following his remark. My fellow residents made fun of my performance. As you know, Alka- Seltzer is an over-the-counter drug you take if you have a hang over or upset stomach. Even though I didn’t know what it was, I hesitated to ask the patient what it was.

We once visited psychiatric ward and did the medical interview with the stable patient. I visited there with a female resident named Katrina from some Eastern European country. She spoke English much better than I. She did the interview first. Her patient was a middle aged African American man. He spoke a lot, but totally incoherently. Katrina asked him what brought him to the hospital.
He answered with just one word, "Boots." After some more conversation it turned out that he was admitted because he couldn’t take off his boots. After the first interchange, he burst into a machine gun spray of words, speaking non-stop. He talked about the topics of every sorts of pro sports like football,
basketball, ice hockey, baseball, you name it. Katrina knew nothing about those sports. The interview ended up as devastating one. The same thing could have happened to a Japanese resident who doesn’t have any interest in sports interviewing a Japanese patient who loves sports.

From this experience I learned that what is common knowledge in a culture, as well as medicine, is also important in the medical interview. Since then I have been trying to read many novels and magazines and watch movies, all in English, in order to increase my common knowledge.