De nachtdienstThe night shift

Unit 37Level B1Block 5 · De taal van het vakSound of this unit: reductie op het gehoor

What this unit teaches

SBAR: four steps in forty seconds

The person you wake has just come out of sleep and is listening to a voice with an accent. A fixed order does the work your fluency cannot: they know what is coming and can follow you even through a mispronounced word. Start at the beginning of the admission instead and you lose them halfway — and then you have to start again, at three in the morning, with someone who is now awake and annoyed.

S  Met {NAAM}, verpleegkundige chirurgie, kamer elf, meneer Vos.
B  Sinds gisteren benauwd, saturatie gezakt van 96 naar 89.
A  Ik denk aan vocht op de longen.
R  Kun je nu komen kijken?

Saying what you think without being the doctor

In many systems the nurse reports and the doctor thinks. Here the assessment step is yours and it is expected, even when you are unsure: «I do not know, but I do not trust it» is a complete and valid answer, and it is the sentence that most often brings someone to the ward. Leaving it out to stay modest removes exactly the information nobody else has — you are the one standing next to the patient.

Ik denk aan vocht op de longen.
Ik weet het niet zeker, maar ik vertrouw het niet.
Het lijkt mij duidelijk anders dan vanmiddag.

What you may leave out at night

At night, brevity is politeness. Drop the full history, the family's remarks and your own shift narrative; never drop numbers, the time, and what you have already done — those three decide whether the person gets out of bed. And one comparison sentence, «this afternoon it was normal», carries more weight than any adjective you could reach for.

Weglaten: hele voorgeschiedenis · wat de familie zei · wat jij overdag deed
Nooit weglaten: getallen, tijdstip, wat je zelf al hebt gedaan
Kort is niet onbeleefd. Om drie uur 's nachts is kort juist professioneel.

From the text

Om kwart over drie 's nachts gaat de bel van kamer elf.
At a quarter past three in the morning the call bell of room eleven goes.

Vocabulary in this unit (56 words)

Dutch	Meaning
de SBAR	SBAR handover tool
de situatie	situation
de achtergrond	background
de beoordeling	assessment
de aanbeveling	recommendation
de dienstdoende	the doctor on duty
de achterwacht	second on call
oproepen	to page, call out
de oproep	call-out, page
de pieper	pager
de bel	call bell
het alarm	alarm
alarmeren	to alert
de drempel	threshold
inschatten	to assess, estimate
de inschatting	judgement, estimate
de urgentie	urgency
acuut	acute
instabiel	unstable
verslechteren	to deteriorate
de verslechtering	deterioration
de achteruitgang	decline
zakken	to drop, fall
de zuurstof	oxygen
de ademhaling	respiration
rechtop	upright
het vocht op de longen	fluid on the lungs
tussentijds	in between, interim
de ochtendoverdracht	morning handover
de nachtrapportage	night report
uitgerust	rested
de vermoeidheid	fatigue
slaperig	sleepy
wakker maken	to wake someone
de slaap	sleep
de verdieping	floor, storey
met zijn tweeën	the two of us
de opgave	task, challenge
kwijt zijn	to have lost (someone's attention)
halverwege	halfway
de kern	the core, the point
ter zake	to the point
bondig	succinct
meedenken	to think along, help think
de aanmatiging	presumption, overstepping
vertrouwen	to trust
geldig	valid
volledig	complete, fully
de opleiding	training, education
de bedoeling	the intention, what is meant
redden	to save
te weinig	too little, too few
te vaak	too often
achteraf	in hindsight
de gebeurtenis	event
hoger zetten	to raise (a bed)

The first unit is free — no account needed.

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