On March 8 2022, an Imgur user posted a Facebook screenshot claiming that children’s hospital St. Jude sought Ukrainian translators to aid in efforts to treat children evacuated from Ukraine:
It wasn’t clear when the post was shared to Facebook, but one variation was shared on March 6 2022. It read:
Fact Check
Claim: In March 2022, St. Jude Children’s Hospital put out a request for Ukrainian translators to help with treating children with cancer evacuated from Ukraine.
Description: In March 2022, St. Jude Children’s Hospital sought Ukrainian translators to help in treating children with cancer who had been evacuated from Ukraine. This claim was spread virally across multiple platforms.
UKRAINIAN TRANSLATORS NEEDED in Philadelphia
WHY: St Jude’s Children’s Hospital is bringing evacuated Ukrainian children with cancer to be treated at St Jude’s
WHAT: St.Jude’s is hiring Ukrainian-English speakers/readers to facilitate communication and translate medical records
WHO TO CONTACT: <[email protected]>
If you (or someone you know) speak/read Ukrainian and live in Philadelphia or nearby – please reach out!
No link to additional information appeared alongside any of the posts, but the name of a contact — Jennifer McArthur — was mentioned along with an email address. McArthur was listed on St. Jude’s website as a DO in Critical Care Medicine at the facility.
On March 6 2022, the official Facebook page for St. Jude posted about receiving the “first group of Ukrainian children and their families” traveling to the hospital from Ukraine:
In support of our partners in Ukraine, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – Science and Medicine has partnered with FUNDACJA HEROSI to coordinate humanitarian efforts to assist with the transition and continuation of clinical care and treatment of Ukrainian children with cancer and blood diseases. On Saturday [March 5 2022], the Foundation’s Unicorn Marian Wilemski Clinic in Bocheniec welcomed the first group of Ukrainian children and their families. We are grateful to the doctors, volunteers, psychologists, translators and all the amazing people who have joined efforts to secure a smooth and safe passage of children to hospitals and medical centers across Poland and abroad.
As of Saturday [March 5 2022], St. Jude Global and Fundacja Herosi have safely placed about 150 Ukrainian children with cancer and over 400 of their family members and we will continue to help as many children and their families as possible.
A similar message was published to St. Jude’s website on March 6 2022, and another appeared in a tweet from the hospital’s account. However, none of the messages mentioned a search for translators or a request to contact Jennifer McArthur:
On March 4 2022, a post was shared to Reddit’s r/ukraine, concerning a search for translators by St. Jude:
In the post, a March 3 2022 tweet from St. Jude pediatric hematologist Dr. Marcin Wlodarski was embedded — again, the request did not involve contacting McArthur, and Wlodarski requested direct messages and shares:
On March 5 2022, PhillyVoice.com published “Ukrainian translators needed in Philly for pediatric cancer patients fleeing Russian invasion,” reporting:
Ukrainian language translators are needed in Philly to help pediatric cancer patients being evacuated from the war zone to the U.S. by the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
The hospital is looking for physicians who speak Ukrainian to help translate medical records into English. Volunteers would be able to do this on a flexible schedule with no specific shifts.
St. Jude’s is also looking for volunteers with a biomedical background who are fluent in English and can read languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which include Russian and Ukrainian.
These translators will be asked to cover one or two six-hour shifts per week entering new patient data into the patient registry and facilitating communication more generally.
Marcin Wlodarski, a doctor at the St. Jude’s campus in Memphis focused in part on blood cancers, first put out the call for volunteers on Twitter on Thursday [March 3 2022].
That reporting embedded a tweet by a Twitter user in Philadelphia, who mentioned McArthur as a contact:
However, the article later provided a slightly different email for available translators:
Those interested in volunteering are asked to send an email to [email protected].
A viral plea for translators to assist St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital with an influx of pediatric patients from Ukraine (which spread virally across platforms) largely matched a Philadelphia news item about the hospital’s urgent search for translators. Social media posts directed users to contact Jennifer McArthur at St. Jude, whereas the article provided a different email address — [email protected]. We did not locate any indications the search was over as of March 8 2022, based on St. Jude’s website and social media accounts. Broadly, the claim was true, but the point of contact provided in a news piece was slightly different than the one circulating on Twitter, Imgur, and Facebook.
- Jennifer McArthur St. Jude | Imgur
- Jennifer McArthur St. Jude | Facebook
- Jennifer McArthur St. Jude | StJude.org
- St. Jude Ukraine Evacuation | Facebook
- St. Jude Ukraine Evacuation | StJude.org
- St. Jude Ukraine Evacuation | St. Jude/Twitter
- St.Jude seeking MDs who can translate ukrainian to english- please help- amplify, retweet, repost! | r/ukraine
- We urgently need #Ukrainian speaking MDs who can translate medical records into English (pediatric Hem/Onc diagnoses first). Message me and please spread @BloodJournal @ASPHO_hq @EHA_Hematology @youngsiop @SIOPEurope @PHOJournal @p_zuchowski @AaronGoodman33 Thanks for help | Twitter
- Ukrainian translators needed in Philly for pediatric cancer patients fleeing Russian invasion
- UKRAINIAN TRANSLATORS NEEDED in Philadelphia - St Jude's Children's Hospital is bringing evacuated Ukrainian children with cancer to be treated at St Jude's WHO TO CONTACT: [email protected] #ukraine | Twitter