Here goes
A few months ago we had a patient in the COVID-19 ward who needed intensive care because roughly 60% of his lungs were damaged due to the viral pneumonia and this patient constantly had to be left in a prone position on his bed and also constantly needed oxygen support. Patient still had an active infection so it could start progressing to become even worse. This patient wasn't in my ward but the ward upstairs which was taken care of this new doctor who had joined as a temporary medical officer. This young guy spent his childhood in some country in South America called "Guyana". Okay I'm gonna be honest with you here. I never knew such a country existed until this new doctor had mentioned it to me. So turns out he's indian but he grew up there and also did his medical education there as well. His parents were tamilians but for some reason he didn't really have much exposure to his native language. So now back to the current scenario. The patient needed icu support hence he needed to shift him upstairs to the icu connected to an oxygen cylinder and a portable vitals monitor. But all protocol states that before we do any procedure or use any medicine that could be expensive, it is our job to inform all this to the patient's family and get their consent. So let me tell you this. Our young doctor told the nursing staff under him to explain the situation and the need for icu care to the family.
But I'm gonna tell you something, a lot of times patient attenders can be dicks. They were the kinda people who thought the nurses don't know shit and that they weren't capable of explaining a patient's health status to them.
So they go and start yelling and saying "Why are you people telling us??? We only want the doctor to update us" and usually even I dread this because most people like this will easily eat up atleast half an hour of your work time which can be spent doing other ward work.
But our young doctor gets up and tries his best to speak in the local language. All he wanted to say was "Please listen to me. He requires Intensive care hence I'm shifting him upstairs and the intensivist upstairs is gonna take care of him". So he says in the local language "Paarungo patient mela poporango....adhuku aprom mela irrukaravanga thaan paakamudiyom".
And the next second I hear the attenders screaming and wailing. I thought "okay maybe the new guy had some issues so I should go check it out" and when I run upstairs and see the woman has collapsed to the ground and is wailing and crying like a banshee. And I asked the new guy what happened and he explained it to me. And I had to explain to them that he doesn't speak the native language properly and not to worry and I calm them down.
For those of you who don't understand tamil.
What our young doctor said in tamil literally translates to "Look he is gonna go up and after that only the ONE above can help him"
And yes after I did calm them down they said they were extremely releived because it's "JUST the icu right? Wow we are releived"
Never in my career did I think I'd hear a line like that
And I go "That doesn't mean he's out of danger yet you inbred"
FFS
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