REFLECTION
SAEM PULSE | JULY-AUGUST 2022
Run the List: A Story of Language, Culture, and Love
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By Alina Mitina, DO It was the end of my intern year and I was carrying the most active patient roster I'd ever had — just another day in emergency medicine. “Run the list,” I said in my head repeatedly. As I determined the best next steps for each patient and carefully mapped out the most efficient pathway through the department to see all of them, I saw ambulances start to line up in the ambulance bay. They were all waiting on one patient: an elderly woman.
I walked over to the charge nurse and the emergency medical technicians, who were looking wearily at the patient. As the charge nurse spotted me, she perked up, hope shining from her eyes, and asked: "You speak Russian, right?" Of course, I do. I’d immigrated to America from Ukraine at the age of seven, and I still remember my mother tongue. I walked over to the patient and introduced myself. Her whole face lit up as I began speaking her language. She
spelled her name for me in Russian and told me she had come to America with her husband from Ukraine 30 years ago. The patient told me her story, about falling on the street and being unable to stand up. I helped triage and comfort her until she was placed in a room. The next morning, I followed up on her and found out that she had been admitted. Two days later, the charge nurse told me they needed my Russian interpreter skills once again. “How odd,” I thought,