I'm currently taking a course to become an EMT-Basic. On one of the calls that I went to as an observer a little communication barrier arose.
The patient spoke spainsih and no english to us as we tried to figure out what exactly was wrong. I've taken two years of spanish over ITV and yeah....not a real big help to me...I obviously didn't learn much.
We tried to use an interpreter, a friend of his who was there, but his english was so broken that it was almost useless. In the end, after administering oxygen, we just took him into the hospital without really being able to treat him more.
Once we were in the ER, the head nurse came to get his charting, and we explained the difficulties we had had trying to figure out what exactly was wrong. She too tried to ask the same questions to no avail.
Then the doctor, introduced himself, and asked the exact same questions that we, the EMTs, and the nurse had tried asking just minutes before. The man then answered in perfect english. I was dumfounded. I wondered why this man had not cooperated sooner, we would have been able to help him more.
I don't know if it is a cultural thing, or the fact that every one who had spoke to the patient before the doctor were women or what exaclty happend, but I couldn't believe...still can't believe, that he would with hold such valuable and pertinante information, that if something else had gone wrong, could have meant life or death. I guess I'm going to have to be more aware as there is becoming more of a cultural difference in my area, maybe brush up on my spanish-speaking skills, so that way next time I'm better prepared.
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it will help you in the future to learn a little more spanish, but that incident that is very weird that he would not tell you what was wrong when he was the one who called the you to come and help him.