Oh well, I'm from Philippines and even people complained that my accent is too bad..Oh well, maybe I just have to write in a piece of paper so that they will understand what I'm saying. (even my grammar is too poor..but I speak 5 different languages.)
I'm sorry, but with our severe nursing shortage, it just HACKS ME OFF when our patients complain about their
foreign nurses having an accent. Sometimes I just want to say "yknow what.....be glad you HAVE A NURSE to care
for you at all !" I am just SO tired of it.....if it's THAT bad, the patient should just ask the nurse to WRITE things......:typing..
No, I'm not foreign nor do I have an accent..........I am just SO TIRED of our patients complaining about that.
Yes, they're sick and they don't want to have to "work" to understand staff, but if they realized how BADLY
we need nurses, they might rethink how rude their comments are!
I was also appalled hearing a doctor speak to a foreign nurse VERY rudely due to her accent.....get over
yourself, doctor!
1) For the record everyone has an accent. Everyone who posted or will post in this thread has an accent. I haven't read the entire thread but in case someone else hasn't pointed that out I just wanted to put it on the record. When I moved from one region to a different one (in the USA) I had to learn to understand people and it wasn't easy - especially since I had to answer the phone on the job.
2) The best way to treat ignorant comments is to ignore them. Some people are extra-crotchety when they're sick and some people are just never nice any day of the week. But bottom line some people only do what they do just to see if they can get a rise out of others. I don't give them the satisfaction.
Remember patients are in a unique position of having very little control and relying completely on the professionals who are taking care of them. They can be nervous, scared and frustrated and having difficulty understanding their nurse adds fuel to the fire.
I think to say they are lucky to even have a nurse is insensitive because my guess is if the patient they can't understand their nurse they probably DO feel like they don't have one at all. To me it would be the same as saying a patient were lucky to even have a nurse, say during their labor and delivery, even though they had a nurse without labor and delivery experiance.
There are methods of reducing accents. Some speech pathologists work w/accents.
There is a company, Lindamoodbell ( http://www.lindamoodbell.com/ ) uses a method based on "phonemic awareness" to teach children to read. It's possible to contact them to see if they could work w/someone on accent reduction.
I'm aware that this stuff is not free, but if you consider it like continuing ed, i.e., something you need to do your job better, it might be tax deductable. Or, if the employer offers education $ support, they might help.
IMHO, hospital administration should offer opportunities for employees who need it to reduce accents that interfere w/optimal pt care.
I agree that accents can be a problem...In nursing school the "higher ups" decided EVERY nursing administrator had to also teach a class. We ended up taking pharmacology from an RN with a heavy Chinese accent and I swear none of us could figure out what drug she was talking about. Our class also scored very low on the Pharm part of the nursing boards. Most of us failed hospitals pharm test that was required to work there.
I feel it is CRITICAL for pts to understand what their nurse says to them as well as having the nurse understand what the pt just said to them, slang or no slang.
Speech therapists can work with people with accents to help them adjust to speaking English without an accent. Maybe hospitals that hire large numbers of foreign nurses should offer them this service.
Several of my students were working with a nurse with a strong accent, his patients were too embarressed to admit they didn't know what he was saying half the time. Gave them lots of opportunities for teaching! He could not explain why a Foley was ordered to be DC'd, the patient objected to having it out; but when we went in and explained Foleys and UTI's, and the need to be moving she was more than willing.
Several people asked my students what he did he say?, as soon as he left the room.
1) For the record everyone has an accent. Everyone who posted or will post in this thread has an accent. I haven't read the entire thread but in case someone else hasn't pointed that out I just wanted to put it on the record. When I moved from one region to a different one (in the USA) I had to learn to understand people and it wasn't easy - especially since I had to answer the phone on the job.
Actually...
There is a such this as non-regional dialect. It is what many multicultural English speaking people learn.
Non Regional Dialects... Pay attention to professional news casters. The best ones use this.
The problem is that people don't want to take the time to control or adapt their speech to their environment.
We have doctors from India that sound like they aren't even speaking English, one of our nurses is from the doctor's same city (where they both grew up) and speaks perfectly fine. The problem is the doctor's laziness. That's all it is.
i really admire people who have the gift of gab...
and avoid parties, social events like the plague, in event i'm forced to talk to someone.
who woulda thought???:chuckle
leslie
Sometimes I think parties would be easier if we could all bring computers and set up a literal chat room right there.....And since we'd all be there to see, we wouldn't even have to post pictures ...
I find it somewhat simplistic to say "oh, of course they have a right to understand their nurse"... I was born in an English speaking country, have spoken English all my life, and speak English just as well as any American. However, I constantly have people comment (not complain) about my accent, and it is not at all uncommon for people in stores, or at work in the hospital to give me a blank look and just say "I don't know what you're talking about".
Come on - if you're totally ignorant, I can't help it. I speak the SAME language as you do. I do not have a "thick" or hard to comprehend accent. If you can't understand someone who doesn't speak with exactly the same inflection as you, then you need to get out more.
This thread was about accents. That is a very different ballgame to "being able to speak english" or "being able to write coherent english".
Speech therapists can work with people with accents to help them adjust to speaking English without an accent. Maybe hospitals that hire large numbers of foreign nurses should offer them this service.
Are you kidding me???? It's not possible to speak "without an accent"... or do you mean WITH an AMERICAN accent? Jeez.
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cessna823
6 Posts
Oh well, I'm from Philippines and even people complained that my accent is too bad..Oh well, maybe I just have to write in a piece of paper so that they will understand what I'm saying. (even my grammar is too poor..but I speak 5 different languages.)