(no subject)

[ocelot]

I got called into the hospital today! And the labor wasn't ridiculously long! And the baby was born before I had to leave! Yay!

I don't think I've had a birth that turned out that well for me in the past 6 months.

It was a couple without a camera, so I got to take pictures and get all artistic to salvage the ones that didn't turn out well.

I wish my college offered a medical Spanish class.

Comments

[purdypiedad.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. Technical Spanish always killed me. By high school, I was basically fluent in Spanish. When I worked in workers' compensation shortly after that, I was used as a translator for Spanish claimants. My biggest problem? I had just learned the terminology in English! How on earth was I supposed to communicate it in Spanish??? Shortly after that, I worked for an insulation company that did charity work for tax breaks. I was put in charge of scheduling all the charity work because 90% of those we served spoke only Spanish. Conversations about weather stripping, bat and blow insulation, and weatherization in general had me performing Spanish gymnastics trying to communicate simple concepts.

They really ought to have job terminology dictionaries for jobs that require a second language to be spoken!

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

I should carry a Spanish dictionary, medically oriented or not. I expect I'd over-rely on it though, and spend time looking things up rather than remembering or thinking of a different way to say something.

Another part of the problem is that the technical medical terminology doesn't necessarily equate to the language being used with patients, and that's harder to look up, especially given the likelihood of regional differences. For example, cervix in Spanish is cerviz, but they use the phrase "boca de matrice" (matriz? I'm not sure - I've only ever heard it pronounced, and I could have the wrong word entirely as it's been a while since I've heard that particular phrase).

I'm actually thinking of putting together a brief list of commonly used Spanish phrases because I know that, as bad as my Spanish is (and I'm not being modest there), it's better than that of many of the doulas. And some of the nurses who have been working there with Spanish speaking patients on a daily basis for years, for that matter. That makes me angry, because it feels like they just don't care, though I suppose it's possible that my limited late-childhood language education was enough to give me a major advantage in terms of being able to pick it up on the fly.

[purdypiedad.livejournal.com]

I think the list is a great idea! I ended up doing just that when I was in workers' compensation.

Yes, late childhood education does give you a little advantage, but really learning through immersion is the easiest way. If the other doulas aren't picking it up AT ALL, it's because they have no interest in it.

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

It's not the other doulas I'm worried about. All of us are in there relatively infrequently - looking at the logs, 2 or 3 doulas have been called per month recently, meaning that any individual doula is unlikely to have more than one birth every few months, and not all of them Spanish-speaking. Certainly nothing anywhere close to immersion.

It's the nurses that make me angry.

[purdypiedad.livejournal.com]

Gotcha. You're right. They have no excuse.

[veryfineredwine.livejournal.com]

Several of the school boards around here offer non-credit adult education classes, and at least one has "Spanish for Health Care Workers". Have you checked out the adult ed classes?

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

Not recently, but I don't think I've ever seen it offered when I have looked.

That would actually be ideal, as I don't need any extraneous college credits at this point.

[veryfineredwine.livejournal.com]

Good luck finding a class that meets your needs.