Trekkies and Red Dots

Trekky… trekky… what in the world is a trekky? I had just been through my first patient rounds at the new hospital, which proved to be slightly more baffling than anticipated. I pretended to follow along, nodded my head when appropriate, even jotted down a few notes. I don’t think anyone suspected I was really silently compiling a mental list of slang I couldn’t decipher. What could a trekky be? I was absolutely confident it had nothing to do with Leonard Nimoy or outer space, but I couldn’t make the medical connection. Aghh! I had hoped speaking the same language would lessen the culture shock of nursing in a foreign country, not taking into account how different “Aussie-speak” could be. Throughout the day, I encountered a multitude of terms that made no sense. What were red dots? Enkephalopathy? Cannulation? My mind was reeling and I was feeling incredibly foolish. Finally, I had to swallow my pride and begin asking questions. These terms may have been second nature to my Aussie counterparts, but they were Greek to me. I got a few funny looks and some laughs, but I learned that red dots were ECG electrode patches, enkephalopathy was encephalopathy (en-sef-uh-lop-uh-thee), and cannulation referred to starting an IV (it is an IV cannula that rests in your vein, after all). And trekky… I guess that should have been obvious. If I had paused to remember how the Australian accent sounds to my American ear and that Aussies love to add a “y” to most words (i.e. brecky = breakfast), it wouldn’t have been such a mystery. They were referring to a patient with a tracheostomy (trey-kee-os-tuh-mee), which American nurses often shorten to trach (trey-k). Trach… trekky… It’s really not too much of a leap. Unscrambling this puzzle provided such a moment of clarity! I know this was a small thing, and actually quite silly, but it made me feel just a little closer to becoming less of an outsider.