I'm currently a peds home health nurse and met with the parents of a client I might me working with. The parents have had bad experiences with foreign nurses mainly from African countries due to their accents. All through the meeting the parents kept mentioning how much they want a nurse who speaks clear English. The parents have had difficulty with communicating with these nurses that have led bad consequences. I have empathize with the parents but at the same time feel sorry for those nurses whom English is hard to understand.
I have worked with nurses and docs who were foreign with thick accents and know how challenging it can be, I can imagine how frustrated the parents may be.
Young people who come here to work and live from other countries on the whole completely understand that they need to be able to speak our language clearly. I truly believe that those who constantly fight assimilating in this way are made fun of by other immigrants who have decided to be professionals in life/workplace. Heck, this country is full of those who have made that transition, why now all the whining? If you are in the USA, and want to stay, just learn the lingo darnit! Nobody says you have to forget your language of origin or from where you've come.
It is not out of the question to be required to speak clear English in the United States. If I decided to move to Russia, Poland, Greece to work and live, you betcha I'd know that speaking the language of that country clearly would be demanded of me, especially as a healthcare professional. I'd be constantly working on this as it would be part of me assimilating to my new land to love.
Edit to add this: LOTs of elderly with poor hearing are upset if they are unable to understand a caregiver. This is in part in frustration of the fact that they are paying for their care, and that the constant reminding that they have poor hearing is an irritant on top of having to weed through a thick accent and broken English, and that many and most are immigrants themselves who are now very nationalistic US citizens that have learned our language themselves long ago... it actually is insulting to them and rightly so.
As often happens in a thread regarding sensitive topics, folks can tend to get a bit testy--"that's NOT what I said" "read what I wrote!", w/a few smart-alecky remarks thrown in for good measure.
Be careful--you can't always "read" what the poster "means". If you're getting irritated, just leave the topic for a while. You really have made your point to someone, even it that person didn't necessarily respond. There is an "ignore" feature that can be used if you need it---and a "report" button if a post is particulary incendiary.
Would like to leave the thread open, but if it gets too disrespectful, the mods will need to give it a "time out" to relax a bit.
Kudos for all the intelligent, insightful postings!
I'm currently a peds home health nurse and met with the parents of a client I might me working with. The parents have had bad experiences with foreign nurses mainly from African countries due to their accents. All through the meeting the parents kept mentioning how much they want a nurse who speaks clear English. The parents have had difficulty with communicating with these nurses that have led bad consequences. I have empathize with the parents but at the same time feel sorry for those nurses whom English is hard to understand.
I have worked with nurses and docs who were foreign with thick accents and know how challenging it can be, I can imagine how frustrated the parents may be.
What are your thoughts ?
My thoughts are to agree with the parents. I want doctors and nurses who can speak FLUENT easy to understand english just like me. I don't care if they have an accent as long as it is easy to understand them. For the most part that does vary on where the person is from as some accents are super easy to understand vs others.
There are plenty of new grads without hard to understand accents I am sure....................... I know that amoung some of the PC crowd these are not popular views but I don't care. it is my health ( when I am the patient). I don't care if there is an accent as long as I can understand it 100% of the time without difficulty. I lived in an area where most of the drs were foreign and did not have any problems understanding them because their english is excellent even if you could tell they were not native speakers. Another thing is some non-americans seem to be lacking cultural competency. and that is HUGE.
This description is not only for people that feel entitled, but I will not argue.
It sounds racist and rude. "My country, My language"
How is, "my country, my language " racist or rude? I assume the majority of the posters who want a nurse/doctor who speaks perfect english would not care if that person was black, white, hispanic(of any race) or a native american.............................I wouldn't. If i say, " I prefer to have american doctors " that doesn't mean a WASP male is the only choice. Actually the "my country, my language" bit sounds like a great slogan. lol
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
There aren't any logic there, so I ignored to even waste my time to reply!
But unfortunately I am sure that yercy121 does not understand this fact...........
Probably not, but I think I can gather that this person really had no interest in understanding what I was trying to say even though I tried to make my extremely long post not be a personal attack against anybody. I don't think that if a person has no interest in understanding something they will excuse it by saying it isn't worth bothering with. That much I can understand from it. I found Yercy's remark dismissive and insincere.
:yeah:
GM2RN
1,850 Posts
yercy121 got served!