G’day, my new blogging friends! My name is Sarah Steward, and I am an Aussie travel nurse who moved to Greenwich, London, a few months ago. I’ve been planning to start a virtual diary capturing my impressions from living in the UK, but my schedule has been so hectic that I could never find the right moment. It is high time I made amends.
Actually, a fascinating case I had a few days ago finally convinced me to start my blog. I had these carefully laid plans for a few introductory posts – why I chose nursing as my career, how I decided to become a travel nurse, and why I chose the UK as my first destination. But if life has ever taught me a lesson, it is that planning is a futile exercise – so let me tell you about what happened.
Before I even arrived in the UK, I had secured a job at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Woolwich A&E (Accidents & Emergency) Unit. I was super hyped about the job because I had researched the hospital and knew it was one of the most reputable and important medical institutions in South East London. All of my lecturers and training specialists at the Institute of Health and Nursing in Melbourne drilled into my head the motto that “practice is your greatest teacher”. In other words, if I wanted to be an excellent nurse, I needed more than reciting the textbooks by heart. I expected to get all the experience I could handle (and more!) at QE (as I found out, the locals lovingly call it).
Now, for the case I mentioned. It was a late Saturday afternoon, and I was absentmindedly checking my phone in the midst of a surprisingly quiet shift. I was about to go to the coffee vending machine when two gentlemen walked into the waiting room area. I could tell without asking that they were a father and a son – the younger man in his mid or late thirties, the elderly gentleman probably in his early sixties. From the latter’s expression, I could sense that he was in considerable pain.
“Good afternoon! We need someone to see my father! He has terrible stomach ache”, the younger man said in a highly agitated voice, bordering on panic. He had a strong accent that I couldn’t properly locate – maybe Middle Eastern or Indian. I politely asked the two men to sit in the waiting room and went to look for Dr Phillips, the emergency specialist on duty.
A few minutes later, we were in the examination room, desperately trying to perform a preliminary check-up. The problem was that the elderly gentleman did not speak a word of English, and his son was not much of a help as an interpreter. He had convinced himself that his father had some form of food poisoning, while I (and most probably Dr Phillips) was leaning towards kidney infection. But, our patient could not give us the necessary answers, and his blood and urine tests would take some time to provide us with answers. It was a “lost in translation” dramedy.
And then it suddenly dawned on me. “Excuse me”, I asked the son, “but where are you from?”
“South Charlton”, he answered incredulously.
“No, I mean, what nationality? And what language does your father speak?”
It turned out they were from Pakistan, having arrived only a few months before. I took my smartphone and loaded Google Translate. It would be difficult to understand what our patient was saying, so I had to go for simple yes or no questions. I typed the first one on my phone, switched to Urdu, and then hit the phonetic button. The father’s face lit up immediately when he heard the familiar phrase and answered affirmatively.
He had been feeling unwell since the previous evening, but his answers confirmed our doubts – there was no chance he suffered from food poisoning. Dr Phillips ordered blood screening and immediately put him on antibiotics to counter the possible infection.
When we left the room, he patted me on the shoulder and nodded his head in approval. “That was a brilliant idea, Sarah! I would have never thought of it!” Two days later, we sent Dawood (as was our patient’s name) home, feeling much better. Who knew Google Translate could be useful in a medical emergency?