One thing i dont understand(at the nurses' station)

[BellaCat]

There is one thing I can never understand being at the nurses' station(sorry if I offend anyone but here goes):

I know that the nursing realm is full of people from different walks of life and culture and that is normal bc it is like that with other professions as well. And I do know that with the nursing profession, there are a lot of American-Filipinos. But the thing that I notice, in all of my work places... is that the Filipino nurses speak their language all the time with each other in front of non-Filipino coworkers and non-Filipino patients. Isn't this rude? I believe in the employee handbook of most facilities mention about speaking the universal language in front of everyone, instead of a particular language, this is only polite, especially if your coworkers next to you doesn't understand the language you speak or your patients. I see this happening a lot and the nurses always leave me "hanging" and "wondering" what they are talking about. Wouldn't you agree that this is just rude and disrespectful.

There's nothing wrong with having Chinese nurses, Filipino nurses, Russian nurses... but I think it'll be respectful and polite to speak the universal language that everyone can understand. Unfortunately, this will always happen at the nurses' station... and I just don't understand it. It's RUDE. Gotta open up those employee handbooks and read.

I am not a troll.. I just wanted to share this perspective of mine on here. Sorry if it's offensive... but if you turn the table around, you would know how it feels.

[BellaCat]

Completely agree. Wow looks like I am over 6months late with this post. A lot of commentators on here misunderstood my post, some took it personally and conclude me as an eavesdropper or a racist. I am neither. My bottom line is that when you speak the language other then the language everyone understands and dan converse with in a group of folks where some of the folks don't understand is quite rude. Nothing to do with trying to pry into their conversation. For instance, if you have a boyfriend or husband of a different culture and he cannot understand your culture, when you have family gatherings and everyone speaks the native language, he would feel uncomfortable and left out... sure, we can say that he can learn to speak the language. Sure, like learning a new la gauge does not take time or effort. I recently had an issue with this at work. 2 CNAs spoke Spanish while doing patient care to patients- patients does not understand and is felt like a number instead of a patient themselves. They feel left out and Unwelcome. Sure, that may not be the intention but it surely made others feel left out. So the bottom line is it's not about prying, easedropping or even being racist ... if we travel to other places - countries or difficult cultures, than the culture and language would be another story.

[MECO28, BSN, RN]

I don't mind if people speak another language around me; it's not their fault that I grew up in an ethnocentric country where it isn't encouraged to be bilingual.

This is maybe a little off-topic but it's my favorite Tagalog language story:

One of my co-workers is an older, American male nurse who gets very enthusiastic about various things. He's funny and a hoot to work with sometimes! Anyway, he was psyched about a CE event that hosted a free dinner at an upscale hotel and was trying to recruit others to join him. The name of the CE dinner was "Save a Limb, Save a Life" or "SALSAL". I was finishing up my charting that day when I heard peal after peal of laughter from the nurses' station. I went to investigate and three of my Filipino coworkers were busting their guts laughing while the aforementioned nurse's face was as bright red as a tomato. Apparently, "salsal" is Tagalog for "masturbate". Whoever decided on that unfortunate acronym should really have consulted their Filipino coworkers.

Welcome to the SALSAL dinner! We encourage you to choke your own chicken and husk your own corn!

[jaderook01, BSN, RN]

In the work place, if you're using a language that isn't held in common to (i.e. spoken by) everyone physically around you, then it is rude and unprofessional. Private conversations need to be conducted in the appropriate time and place.