I was being given a “port” by two probably Filipino nurses who had “RN” on their badges. The one doing the insertion was shaking. The other one was urgently whispering to her and running a finger over the insertion site to illustrate to her how to do it. The first one had obviously never stuck a needle into a vein before as the other nurse was apparently explaining what a vein versus an artery looked like and how to find it, in a language I didn’t recognize, so probably Tagalog.
In a latter incident, after I had passed out on the toilet for lack of blood the first nurse in a panic had actually called the duty doctor. Over my prostrate and convulsing body, the second nurse told the first nurse to never actually call a doctor but to only text them. I can’t imagine what a text in English from someone who apparently didn’t speak any would read like. When the doctor arrived and they started working on me, the first nurse apologized to the doctor for calling instead of texting. He said, “If you had texted instead of calling, he would be dead now. You did the right thing.” Incidentally, the duty doctor was a young black man, and he came across as professional and competent. (Oh, and by-the-way, built like a pro body builder.) But some of the nurses had clearly lied on their resumes and at least one was not an RN.
We, the USA, give way too much cred to foreign nursing and med schools..................
My opinion of hospitals are that they are not only places you go to die they are places that will kill you if you may recover. All you gotta do is give them a chance. The only way to survive a hospital stay is with a body guard advocate.