Double-Take

Outside of the Philippines, I’ve worked in two different countries with colleagues of five different nationalities. None of them had English as their first language unless you count pidgin English. So moments that made me go "Huh?!" or made me suppress my laughter happened quite often. Here are some of my favorites:

One of our Mid-Eastern surgeons was writing a postponement order for a patient’s surgery and he asked me,
“Lorie, how do you spell BOSTBONED… “B” up or “B” down?”
“B” down, Doc. (“B” up = b, “B” down = p)

A patient came to the ER after an insect got lodged in his eye while he was out riding his bike. The Indian nurse receiving him wrote in his chart as the chief complaint:
“Foreign body: Animal in the Right Eye”. HAYOP! :)

At the end of a gruelling 12-hour shift in the ER, my Maleyali colleague complained:
"My feet is paining me!” Ouch!

Another Mid-Eastern doc asked his fellow Filipina doc to remind him to make a call to our sister hospital the following day:
“Doeleth, please remember me tomorrow to call KKUH.” Oooookay.

Written by our Burmese staff nurse in a hemodialysis patient’s file, advising her to take small snacks during the day because she had no appetite:
“Patient has no epitite. Adviced to eat snakes.” Yipes!

An invitation from one of our Malay patients to come and eat at her hawker stall:
“On Sunday you come and eat my shop, ok?” Sure, hehehe!