His ship came in

The ship from China was in Mobile.

It was the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday and it was the normal crazy mad rush of people coming in to the ER. I loved my job and the excitement never ended, there would be short lulls of time but overall the flow was continuous of sick, hurt, injured people. 

The hospital where I worked at the time had an agreement with the shipyards downtown to take patients who came in on ships from foreign countries and there was a liaison who always accompanied them. Unfortunately this liaison could only speak english. 

This particular day a chinese gentleman was brought in with an injury. He had smashed two of his fingers on his right hand with some kind of equipment he was using on the ship. Both fingers were totally as black as tar and the skin looked like leather, there was no sign of life or appearance on those fingers of anything looking like human flesh. He did not speak english and when Dr. B saw him, he determined the patient needed surgery immediately to remove these fingers. 

Dr. B began an effort to tell him what needed to be done and how important it was to do it asap. It was almost funny as I watched our doctor; he looked like he was playing charades and was very animated in his efforts to explain. But the patient would stand and motion that he wanted to walk out. It was like watching one of those silent movies, they were acting out their conversations and it was interesting to watch. I believed that both understood what the other was saying to a point but there was a piece of the puzzle missing.

In the midst of all of this Dr. Schulte, a local physician with Pulmonary Associates came walking up to my desk and asked what Dr. B was doing. I explained the guy was injured two days ago on a ship from China and Dr. B was trying to tell him that we need to amputate his dead fingers, but the man only speaks Chinese. The patient appears to want to leave.

Dr. Schulte stood there, thinking. He is a very clever man and he is very funny. When he told me to call the China Doll Restaurant, I was confused. I thought he was just being silly and acting like he was going to order food or something. Then he said, tell them I want to talk to someone there who speaks both english and chinese.

Soon I had a very nice lady on line and Dr. B. brought the patient over. He explained to this lady how important it was that the man from China stay and have surgery to remove these fingers. Then he handed the phone to the patient, who began talking fast and animated. I did not think he would ever be through telling his story to this chinese lady at the restaurant. Finally he handed the phone back to Dr. B. She told Dr. B that the patient said he has family in New Orleans, which is the next port for his ship and they are going there tomorrow. He wants to wait until he is with family to have this done and he vowed that if they would allow him to go back and catch the ship before it left our port, he can meet with his family tomorrow, go to the ER in New Orleans, have the surgery and have family at his side. Dr. B. agreed to allow that with his sworn promise.

This once frustrated, upset, almost angry and confused patient looked like a different person at this point. He was calm and happy as he signed the discharge papers and took the envelope with our physician’s notes. Then off he went with the liaison to catch his boat that was headed to New Orleans.

I do not know how Dr. Schulte thought of calling a Chinese Restaurant. It would never have crossed my mind. He is a very humorous man that kept us in stitches when he came through the ER late at night. Yet he is a great pulmonary physician with compassion and a sharp mind. I think he deserved an award for this one.

I thought about the services we have at our disposal for translations in cases like this, but I realized that this call to the China Doll Restraunt worked so much faster and more efficiently; good call by a great physician.

Two days later, Dr. B. got a call from the surgeon in New Orleans who advised the surgery was done and the patient should do well. 

At  dinner time on that shift, we ordered Chinese food to be delivered to the ER. There was shrimp fried rice, crab rangoons, egg rolls, chicken chow mein, and we did our best to eat it with chopsticks in honor of a different culture....soon after the eating commenced, you could hear, “give me a fork”, “where is a spoon”, “I can’t handle these chopsticks!”