Common emergency spanish dialogues

[Tpointerbsn]

Greetings to all my lovely fellow nurses :)

I would love to begin a quick dialogue of common Emergency Room spanish used. From triage to placing the patient in the room so that I feel more comfortable in the primarily spanish speaking area I just started working :)

I can say simple things like

tiene dolor ?

donde

But never an entire dialogue that I commit to memory!

I have been an ER nurse for 3 years and have made my way minimally but looking to expand my specific Emergency room spanish :)

any help would be magnificent

thanks !!

[Neo Soldier, BSN, RN]

Have you tried using duolingo? It's a language learning app. Use it in your free time. It will teach you how to conjugate and the while shibang..it's also free.

[LibraNurse27, BSN, RN]

Purchasing a book of medical Spanish phrases can be really helpful. If there are any specific phrases you would like to learn, let me know! I am fluent in Spanish and happy to help.

[brownbook]

I worked pre-op. Many Spanish speaking patients. I brought a copy of the pre-op check list home and wrote the Spanish translation above the English phrases.

It worked great for me.

I did have my bilingual co-workers help, made sure I was using the correct words.

Maybe you could make a list of 10 - 20 commonly used phrases you use?

[skylark, BSN, RN]

Your dept should have one of the multilanguage phrasebooks, which contains standard triage questions in 36 languages.

The questions are numbered, so you line up the English page alongside the language you want to use. Questions usually require a yes or no answer, or ask the patient to write something like their address or DOB, so its really easy.

If you don't have the book, its about $20 to buy or you can print out all the languages from this link.

Emergency multilingual phrasebook : Department of Health - Publications

[HiddencatBSN, BSN]

The trouble with learning advanced sounding phrases is that if you nail the pronunciation you might have a patient start speaking very complicated Spanish to you very quickly thinking you are more fluent than you are. So I try to start out with hablo poco espanol. Entiendo mas que hablo. I like to be able to ask essentially rounding questions- te duele, quieres agua, etc. I can ask about allergies but don't always understand the responses- I had a patient tell me that they were allergic to pineapple but I thought they were saying shrimp. So it's not something I rely on for actual assessment and triage other than super basic stuff.

[Leader25, ASN, BSN, RN]

I am fluent ,ask me anything.

How is your language line for when it is non urgent?

[JBudd, MSN]

Does your ER not have access to an interpreter line or skype? My Spanish does well enough for the phrases I need, I sometimes have trouble with the answers and honestly say so....

We have a roll around machine where we can dial in for any language, including ASL, and get a live interpreter immediately. We used to use the telephone one on conference call, the face to face works a lot better. The interpreter will translate everything you say, even if you weren't speaking to the patient (someone interupts for instance); so you have to be careful about casual comments etc.

[Lunah, MSN, RN]

"Lo siento por tu mala suerte." - sorry about your bad luck. That's as fancy as I get, along with "no se mueve por favor," "respire profundo" and "dolor in el pecho?" Funny thing - when I was in Afghanistan, I kept trying to use my medical Spanglish on the Afghans, with zero success, of course. Heh. Once I had a patient from El Salvador tell me that I speak Spanish with an Italian accent, which likely comes from living in Italy as a kid. The sad thing is that my dad's family is Hispanic!

I use the language line.