Yesterday I have a clinical rotation with Batch 40B at Avalon Villa Care Center in central-east Los Angeles and I was totally shocked about the environment dropping my jaw about the "street culture" that I have apparently seen and observed. It was pretty much different from the norm that I am used to.
Well, if you talk about central-east Los Angeles you can have a connotation that people there are used to a ghetto culture. I mean if you are a very traditional person you'll get offended, terrified, and mesmerized immediately. It's just pretty much ugly to listen to it but these were just normal for them. I got shocked at first but I have to hold on my reins.
People there were very much aggressive verbally and if you're not used with very vulgar street words then you might probably ending up having a huge altercation with a person in the building. It is offensive and disgusting when you listened to it but to them it seems like it was just a day-to-day happening or norm. I got used to it during my eight hour stay at the facility but whoa it was a big auditory workout.
As an instance, I got these two CNAs bickering at the station. One CNA was been dozing off at the station (which she shouldn't be doing because it is not allowed to sleep in the facility at that time of the day, it was 0800H) and the other CNA was talking to her loudly saying; "You bitch just came here and you're already dozing off? Get off your f---ing ass up there on that hapless chair and break some bones."
Whoa, that was unpleasant for my students to hear those gangster street words. I myself was been flabbergasted about what happened I thought they gonna be pulling each other's hair but to my astonishment I was bewildered when the sleepy CNA stands up and talked back to the other CNA saying; "You are tough bitch but watch out. Babalu." Then they ended up laughing at each other and locking fist as a sign of peace.
On the otherhand, there's this resident talking to a nurse saying; "Damn, I missed my cigarette session. That bitch nurse at the station won't allow me to swoop some green smoke. I'll gonna beat her motherf---ing gut for treating me like shit. (Then he snickered.)" Wow, that place was something. Very scary! I am really shocked but to them it's just okay to do it.
There were a lot of circumstances that I've observed and seen about ghetto verbages. It was so sickening to listen but no qualms here. It's just like watching an eerie horror movie and pee on your pants. It was disgusing and offensive but to them it's music to the ears and a very soothing literary piece. Kind of an antonym-synonym comparison or an extreme metaphor. It's just like they call it in rhetorics as an "Apostrophe". Kinda odd but it's just like that literally.
Today, we get back there but apparently they have a Medicare/Medicaid Charting survey so technically they don't want to disturb the surveyors. They instructed us to just leave the facility and just come back when the survey is over. Thank God we're not gonna be there for the whole day. At least I can avoid listening more blunt comments that will not be pleasing to listen at.
I instructed the students to go to school and I will meet them there. I gave them an hour to drive because of the rush-hour traffic on the freeway and will just resume our clinical day there improving their skills and knowledge about Pharmacology and computations and review their pointers for their theory class.
I was driving on the freeway and I sighed a big relief having known that I am not going to listen to those crap conversations in that facility again. I was thankful that the students will be assigned next week at Long Beach Care Center. I am really glad that today will be the last day that I am not gonna be listening to those ghetto terms.
Yes, every day is full of surprises and what will be surprising are the things that are not usual to us. As a human being we have to adapt to our environment and mingle with in the surroundings to protect ourselves and deflect the threat. And that was just the exact thing that I did yesterday. Having not coped up to that stressful environment I don't know what will happen to me yesterday.
In every situation our coping mechanism would be to "fight" or "flee" from the stressful situation but I chose to "fight" and it made me more adaptive to the whole situaton. Thank God I survived and I did good. Yay!
No comments:
Post a Comment