I just recently started working in a heavily Spanish-speaking population in California. I myself have no real knowledge of Spanish, except for the little I remember from high school and the bits I've picked up along the way. It's nowhere near as much as I need to communicate with my Spanish-speaking-only patients. Of course, we have translators in the hospital, people on the unit that are fluent in the language, and phone numbers/video chats that we can use to communicate with our patients. But, I still feel like I'm doing them a disservice by not being able to know what they need every time I go in the room, or know how to ask them questions regarding how they're feeling as I do my hourly rounds. I can't have a translator at my side at all times and I don't want to pull other employees from their jobs. What resources have you guys found useful in situations like this? Any help would be appreciated. One of my co-workers said I'd pick it up along the way, but that could take a while. She also said "conversational Spanish would be too formal". I'm not 100% sure what that means as I'd assume conversations would typically be informal, no? Thanks so much for any and all assistance you can give on this!
