Re: Cultural conflicts between American born and Filipino nurses
Nursing is not about enjoying other country foods or being in love with a person from another country it is about delivering competent, safe care to patients. I have worked with absolutely marvelous nurses from other countries who have brought a great deal to the care of patients. But I have to say that the language "not a barrier" as they are all required to pass english nursing exams (at least here they are) is a great hurdle. Events like happened recently haunt my nightmares. In the emergency room of the facility were two groups of nurses. On one side of the patient were nurses conversing in Mexican, one the other side were nurses conversing in Tagalog. Neither was paying any attention to each other, to the patient, or what was going on. The poor patient was laying there yelling, "Doesn't ANYONE speaks English". Cultural differences aside, this event was not the first time that I have encountered such behaviour. Since two differing sets of IV's were being started, (until I intervened), danger and peril to the patient was secondary to speaking an easy to speak language. Accents can be difficult to understand at first but one of the best nurses I ever worked with had a VERY strong Vietamese accent, but within two weeks of working with her she was very understandable.
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