Linguistics; medical language; a sea change....
I'm rushed today because my agent has things for me to do, but I did want to send this post, even if I had to do it far too hastily, while the details are still fresh in my mind.

As you already know, I spent last Thursday in a hospital Emergency Department, and I spent most of Friday in the hospital. [After not having been in a hospital other than as a visitor or a troubleshooter/linguist for many many years.] And I cannot tell you how happy I am to be able to report the following:

I did not encounter one hostile or impatient or cross -- or even arrogant -- word from a medical professional during the entire time that I was there. Not one word. And not a single item of body language of any of those kinds either. Everyone -- doctors, nurses, aides, administrators, clerks, technicians -- was unfailingly and without exception kind and courteous and pleasant. This despite the fact that the language environment was a classic format for hostility, as in...


1. The patient was a little old lady.

2. Both the ER and the hospital were horrendously crowded and busy.

3. The little old lady in question several times refused medication that people wanted to give to her and tests that people wanted her to have.

4. The little old lady in question was -- during the Emergency Department stay -- accompanied by a grumpy and impatient old man.


Despite all of four of these factors: never a cross word; never a cross item of bodyparl. And here's an astonishing anecdote to finish up with...

At one point my husband went to the ER nursing station and found only a doctor there, and the following dialogue took place:

Doctor: "Can I help you?"
George: "When one of the nurses gets back, could you ask them to come unhook Suzette from all the machines so that she can use the restroom?"
Doctor: "Oh, we don't have to wait for a nurse. I can do that."

And he did. Immediately. And pleasantly.

Glory be.