Yesterday there was a patient in the room I was working in whose first language is Spanish. The patient speaks English perfectly well but occasionally lapses into Spanish. Usually I just say ‘en Ingles, por favor!’ and smile and the patient smiles and switches back.
Anyway my RN was working with that patient and trying to communicate simple instructions to help them move to another room.
The patient asked the nurse several times, ‘Como se nombre?’ My RN kept trying to gently explain what they needed from the patient (‘this way, this way, here is your walker’) and the patient kept repeating their question.
I called out across the room: ‘Do you want to know the nurse’s name? The nurse’s name is…’
The patient was delighted. ‘Ah!’ they said and smiled. My RN said, ‘oh, do you understand Spanish, that’s great!’
I said ‘No, not really. I just grew up watching Sesame Street.’
Now the patient knew their nurse’s name – at least for the moment – and they were able to focus and follow instructions about walking.
I’m learning more and more that having even just a few words in another language can help break big communication barriers. I had a Bosnian patient once with almost no English but they loved that I said ‘da’ and ‘ne’. The rest we muddled through with language cards. I have had a Samoan patient who was endlessly grateful that I pronounced their name correctly (tip: in my experience, for most Pasifika languages, if you just pronounce all of the consonants and all of the vowels you’ll be pretty close, Maōri has a few tricky sounds like ‘wh’). That patient said, ‘you are the only person who says my name the right way’ which went such a long way to helping us work together positively.
I haven’t yet been able to follow up on my Auslan studies this year the way I planned to. Committing to weekly classes around student nursing schedules is remarkably difficult. But I am going to persevere. I’ve joined an Auslan social conversation (and op-shopping!) group and I’m looking forward to heading out for coffee with them next weekend 🙌🏻