People suffering from hearing deficits number in the millions worldwide and yet there are very few measures in place to ensure proper communication between them and health care professionals, who are supposed to look after them. It's currently not required of doctors to learn sign language in order to better understand what a Deaf person is suffering from. The levels of awareness on this matter are extremely low, as pointed out by a British Medical Journal (BMJ) study.
 

The term Deaf refers to people who were born Deaf and use the English Sign Language (BSL) as their primary method of communication. It's these people that are most affected by this lack of communication, as they have no reference points to what the spoken language sounds like, unlike those who became deaf during accidents or due to degenerative processes in the ear. People with acquired deafness know what sounds "sound" like and have a better understanding of what those talking to them are actually trying to say.

 
In the United Kingdom alone, there are more than 9 million persons suffering from some form of hearing deficit. That's roughly one sixth of the country's population. When looking at the numbers it's hard to believe that only 30 percent of them can communicate with medics taking care of them. The rest do not benefit from translators to and from BSL.
 

Considering that doctors have an obligation to "listen to patients and respond to their concerns and preferences" and "give patients the information they want or need in a way they can understand" it stands to reason that King's College's example, of teaching its students how to communicate with Deaf or hard-of-hearing patients, should be implemented in the curricula of every medical college very soon. Otherwise, choices patients make may be decided upon inadvertently, due to lack of information or misunderstanding of the information given to them by doctors.