One of the greatest benefits of being a travel nurse is the ability to interact with a diverse group of people on a daily basis. Of course, this can also be a challenging aspect of the profession when a language barrier is involved. When health and treatment come into play, the stakes are raised.
Because of this, many nursing experts and people with travel nursing jobs advocate the acquisition of foreign language skills. This doesn’t mean that travel nurses need to be fluent in a dozen languages, of course, but it does mean that learning a few key phrases in common tongues and building a rudimentary understanding of different cultures can vastly improve your job performance and communication skills.
Here are a few things to know about treating patients who do not speak the same language.
A few key phrases
Learning a complete language may be out of the question for most travel nurses, but mastering a few dozen particularly useful phrases is not. There are many questions and requests that are nearly universal in a healthcare facility – such as “I need medicine,” “I am in pain” and “I need to go to the bathroom” – so learning these phrases in a few common languages can make your job significantly easier.
Locations
As a travel nurse, you are used to moving from region to region. This experience can teach you a lot about the patchwork of cultures that comprise the American population, and this information can ultimately make you a much stronger nurse. To get the most out of the few integral phrases you’ve learned, you should use your knowledge of different regions to help you decide which words and idioms to learn.
Study guides
One way to use your geographic knowledge and travel experience to your advantage is to amass a small collection of reference materials. Foreign language dictionaries and phrase books are useful tools, and you can make your job easier by bringing a few pertinent materials with you when you leave for a new assignment. Of course, the internet is a vast storehouse of language guides, so becoming proficient at tapping this resource can help you have an abundance of information at your finger tips.
Other tools
In addition to a few common phrases and a small collection of language guides, there are a few other tools that can prove quite useful for travel nurses.
Communication boards, which combine pictures and letters to spell out simple words, can help you communicate with patients regardless of their mother tongue. These boards are common with non-verbal patients, and they can serve a similar purpose for nurses trying to communicate with patients.
Translation services are another useful tool for combating the language barrier. There is an extensive range of these devices and software programs on the market, and they are often inexpensive, so speak with your supervisors about acquiring one if this issue is common in your next assignment.