The nurse is a caregiver, not only to the patient but also the family. Nurses educate, demonstrate, and assess, to accomplish all this they must be able to communicate. I am a nurse working in a Texas hospital. I find a significant portion of patients is Spanish speaking only. A lack of communication makes medication administration, assessment, and simple needs such as ice or water a challenge. When I lived in Connecticut, I realized that there was also a significant portion of Spanish speaking patients. Other languages that have passed through the hospital halls include French, German, Russian, Mandarin, and Polish. My excellent bucket list as a nurse is to learn fluent Spanish, but right not I’ll take enough to get through an assessment and make my patient comfortable.
#1 Being able to Connect to a Patient
The void of communication places a wedge between the nurse and patient. Some patients remind me why I became a nurse because of the bonds that of can be made. If a communication gap occurs, the relationship has no way to develop. The ability to speak to patients allows us to share and convey needs. Not having a common language results in a poor experience for both the nurse and the patient. This becomes a missed opportunity to touch another person’s life.
#2 Inability to do one’s job properly
The lack of communication also includes a prominent issue of the assessment. When not being able to ask about pain, discomfort, you could be missing some vital information. As a nurse we assess, we ask questions even when you don’t mean to we are continually observing the patient see if there is any change from the baseline. Nurses come to naturally follow up observations with questions to better understand the issue. Assessment begins with the visual, hearing, touch, but without shared language information is lost or put aside. Even when using a translator, data can be shared, but the level of understanding and acknowledgment is lost.
#3 It’s always appreciated to try
Engaging anyone in their own language no matter how little you know will be valued by the patient. Even if its a few choice words the patient will be slightly more at ease with some familiar words. This will open the patient to try to speak what words they know in an attempt to communicate.
Whether you live in an area with Spanish, French, or polish as a secondary language and culture. Engaging in the language and learning some of the customs is part of what we nurses do, its taking care of patients as a whole. One project for me is learning Spanish.