Me llamo Rachel. Voy a ser su enfermera para este turno.

*Read: Hi, my name is Rachel. I am going to be your nurse for this shift.*

Two weeks ago, I would have been totally dumbfounded by this statement. But thanks to my Spanish for Healthcare Professionals course, I am learning (slowly, but surely) a new and exciting language!

Thus far, Spanish has proved to be one of my favorite classes in nursing school. Learning a new language is challenging (understatement of the century), yet beyond rewarding! I want to give a public thank you and shout out to my incredible roommates and amigas (friends) who are tolerating my constant thirst for knowledge and practice.

A public thank you to my roommate (and her dog) for helping me to hone my spanish skills!

Why spanish? As nurses (especially in the greater D.C. area), we have the privilege of working with patients and families from a variety of diverse backgrounds. Many of my patients are Spanish-speaking, and I felt this lack of language knowledge was greatly hindering my ability to build rapport with my patients.

We are three weeks in, and I can already see my hard work paying off! Thus far, I have gained many useful phrases and grasped some tricky grammatical concepts. Our professor is incredible and pushes each of us to the next level. The course is small, only twelve students, and largely conversational. We all derive from different language backgrounds, making for an interesting mix of levels.

Estoy muy emocionada! *read: I am very excited* to see what this semester will bring for my Spanish language skills! I will keep you posted 🙂

Happy Thursday!