lied to her. After the operation, the woman was angry and threatened to sue the hospital. This is one reason why translators can sometimes be the bane of hospital care providers. Their job is not an easy one, as the author makes clear.
The most grotesque example of idioms as problems comes on page 17, where the author mentions a Korean doctor, a surgeon, whose patient nervously asked him if he were going to "kick the bucket" during the operation. The doctor, joking, told the patient, "Yes, you certainly will kick the bucket," and the patient was not amused. This is an example of how not to treat a patient, especially in inter-ethnic relations.
One of the more disturbing examples of ethnicity playing a major role in hospitalization is given on page 23, in which the author describes Hamid, a 25 year old Iranian who gave the nurses "orders," not requests. He told all of them what to do, and they resented him. A nurse's brother-in-law finally explained that in Iran, men tell women what to do, not just how to do it. In Iran, a nurse's job is a lowly one, and they are second class citizens. Hamid's behavior was justified in terms of his culture.
The Jehovahs Witnesses are dutifully chronicled in this book, because they present so much of a problem in the giving of blood in the case of illness. The author states that most nurses have seen Jehovahs Witnesses refuse blood in the case of emergencies, usually resulting in the death of the patient (p. 37).
Mormons are also dealt with here, especially the case of a surgery patient who refused to discard her long underwear before her operation. The health care personnel found this frustrating, but the author states that such patients sho
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