@aledornell It has even happened me as a native English speaker who has learned French and Spanish. I’ve discovered words which do exist in English but are more formal, academic or even a little pedantic. It’s fascinating how languages interweave.
I was in my first month of residency....standing in front of a shouting relative who wanted answers I didn’t have yet. I was nervous, sleep-deprived and trying to explain the "pathophysiology" and "prognosis" using every textbook term I knew. The more I talked about lab values, the angrier they got. I was losing control of the room.
The senior staff nurse, who had probably seen hundreds of residents like me come and go, quietly walked over.
She didn't interrupt me. She just put a hand on the relative’s arm, looked them in the eye, and spoke two sentences in their local dialect. She didn't mention a single medical term. She talked about comfort, about the small progress made since the morning, and promised to keep a close eye on him through the night.
The tension in the room vanished instantly. The shouting stopped. The relative finally exhaled.
In five minutes, she did what I couldn't do with an hour of medical counseling.
Medical school taught me how to treat a disease. But in that first month, the nurses in my ward began teaching me how to treat a human being.
We sign the discharge papers, but they are the ones who guide the family through the storm.
To the teachers who don’t wear a professor’s gown: Happy International Nurses Day.
@JRunningteam Otra con algo metido en el ojo... qué bonita familia! Desde esos primeros días se os ve vuestro amor vuestra felicidad en los momentos mas duros. Y a Su Majestad, esa sonrisita desde siempre. Gracias por compartirlo, de verdad. Sois una lección de vida!
"Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humour, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence, and nothing too much."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
@RTEOne So we just move elsewhere and price put the locals. And so it goes on. Is she going to live there full time and work for a Spanish salary? Learn the language? Form part of the community?