Turns out the docs DO need my help!

[Julius Seizure]

Just a minor story from my shift yesterday:

Yesterday a consult was ordered on my patient. The resident for the consulting service came in and I gave her a brief overview of the patient, including the fact that the family spoke very minimal English. I offered to call for an interpreter for her, and she said it wasnt needed at the time, but that she would need one when she came back later with her attending. So, to be helpful and facilitate that, I said that if she called me about 20 minutes before coming, I would page an interpreter to meet them at the bedside.

So that evening, they called, I paged the interpreter, but it took forever for them to come. When the consulting team arrived to see my patient, it happened to be right at 7:00pm, shift change. Sorry, I paged them, but the interpreter hasn't arrived yet. The doctor asked if there was a nurse available to translate for them. No, its shift change...even if it wasn't, everyone is pretty busy with their own patients. BUT we do have this useful resource called the Language Line which you can call from any phone, day or night, and get a translator for any language. The resident goes, "oh...I'm not really comfortable with using that..."

Well it is your lucky day, you get to learn something new! The oncoming nurse went in with them, dialed the interpreter and got them on the phone...and they acted like they wanted her to stay in there and hold the receiver for them for the entire phone call.

Sometimes I just have to roll my eyes a tiny bit (in a good humored way of course)...is that bad?