Dear Cathy Barger and all,
     There are many interpreters on staff in my  hospital, Russian,
Vietnamese, Hmong, Cambodian, Spanish, American Sign Language....which is
wonderful!  They work daytime hours only.  We also utilize AT&T telephone
interpreters.   My husband happens to be hearing impaired and I learned
ASL while we were dating and newly married (btw my state board of nursing
accepted the classes for cont. ed for my RN license).  The actions,
expressions, and miming have helped often in communicating with
non-English speaking patients, and knowing the ASL has helped me feel
more "loose" and comfortable with gestures, etc.  Our LC dept also has a
multi-language picture book for teaching breastfeeding I use often with
Spanish speaking pts.
     So there are creative ways to communicate, as you have seen too.
     Warmly,
     Susan Potts RN IBCLC    Minnesota

On Thu, 14 Jan 1999 19:45:59 -0500 Automatic digest processor
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