William Brangham:
Professor Elda Ramirez, who is also a nurse, saw in the E.R. at another facility an awful example of what can happen when patients cannot be fully understood.
Elda Ramirez, Cizik School of Nursing, UTHealth Houston: I kept seeing this young woman, and I could see that she was curled up in a chair and she was holding her face. And I saw in the chart that she had facial trauma.
And I thought, oh, well they’re surely getting some imaging or whatever. And I looked at the chart, and there was no imaging ordered. So I went up to her. And when I actually went up to her and said (speaking in foreign language) and she immediately says (speaking in foreign language).
She had chemicals that had splashed in her eyes. And, somehow, in the translation that had taken place at triage, that had been completely missed. I’m like, ooh. And then we were able to move forward. Luckily, she was OK, and we were able to take care of that. But that moment of time where that was missed in translation, that was huge. It was huge.
