Hello all, I have had an interesting second week of prac.
A few experiences have stood out above the others.
One such instance was when I went to treat a Croatian lady in her late eighties who was day one post Laparotomy plus small bowel resection. I read her notes which were brief as she did not speak English well and proceeded to plan my treatment. My plan was to ask the usual subjective questions, assess her chest and obs, teach some ACBT and supported cough and if all was going well ambulate.
When I got to the patient however, it was quite a different scenario all together. Luckily an interpreter had been booked as the lady didn’t understand any English and was feeling very frightened and frustrated. This was the first time she had ever been in a hospital and could not understand why after having the surgery she wasn’t completely better? Everything was completely foreign to her, she was terrified at the beeping of the IV or Feed as she thought something was going wrong with her. She also didn’t understand why she couldn’t eat or go to the toilet (IDC). She likened the last 24 hours to being held in an isolation cell.
As it turned out this was the first chance the patient had to properly communicate with the health and medical staff. A lot of my planned treatment was spent explaining and reassuring her that she was doing well and that some pain/dizziness is normal following surgery. I struggled however, to explain through the interpreter the idea of ACBT and a supported cough. The patient argued that it was her stomach that was the problem not her lungs, and she refused to cough as she didn’t feel she needed to.
All this just got me thinking about how I would feel if I was the patient in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language, all sorts of attachments and someone coming in and telling me to cough and purposely increase my pain? It just made me realise that treatments which seem so normal to us can seem quite unusual to our patients without good communication.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hi Jess,
I totally agree with you that having good communication is so important. i had a similar encounter some time back during my placement and i had such a hard time trying to get my point across to the interpreter. In the end, i could only get half of my treatment done. While the interpreter was around, i also tried to learn some commonly used words from him/her. Words like breathe, exercise, walk, pain.. on my second encounter with the patient, i could get much treatment done. Not sure if it works for you...... enjoy your week
Hi Jess!
I think its a great idea sometimes to put ourselves in the patients shoes, and take a 'real' look at what the patient is asked to do.
As you have said, some of the treatments we give may be confusing to the patient, hence the need for great communication, which is made more difficult with your pt not speaking english.
I agree, I feel that our main job is making the patient feel comfortable with what we are asking them to do, without that the treatment will not have the same effect.
Any how, enjoy the rest of the placement.
Post a Comment