Yara Abukhaled
Memphis, Tennessee, United States

It was just after 2:00 a.m. when the mother rushed into the emergency department, her son cradled in her arms. He was ten years old, barely conscious, his face streaked with soot and tears. His legs were blistered and raw, glistening under the fluorescent lights. She tried to explain what happened. Something about a family barbeque. But no one could understand her.

She was speaking Amharic.

The team moved quickly. IV fluids. Oxygen. Burn tray. A nurse handed me gauze, and I did what I was supposed to, but my focus kept returning to the mother. Her voice was cracking with urgency. She reached for someone’s arm. No one reached back.

She was pleading: “Please, just tell me he’s going to be okay.” But no one could—there was no interpreter. She stood beside her son’s stretcher, helpless. She was surrounded by activity, alarms, commands, but was entirely alone in her fear. She was not asking for morphine, the burn percentage, or the Parkland formula, but for reassurance. For someone to speak to her.

We stabilized the boy. His wounds were dressed, his pain controlled. Nearly an hour later, a translator arrived. I watched her face shift as one sentence was spoken: “He’s stable. He’s going to be okay.”

Tears flowed again, this time from relief. It had only been one hour, but in that hour, she had stood in the darkest place a mother can be: terrified for her child, unable to ask questions, unable to understand answers. She was physically present yet excluded from the care surrounding her.

What stayed with me, even after my shift ended, was that in a hospital full of knowledge, skill, and rapid response, we failed her, not in treatment, but in connection. That night taught me that without access to language, medicine becomes performative, sometimes in a sense meaningless. Medicine is only universal if we make it so. Without words, patients lose autonomy. Providers lose the ability to offer one of the most healing things we can: reassurance. That night, no one could explain what we were doing. We were placing IVs, whispering vitals, adjusting dressings, but we were not communicating. We were not connecting. And that left a void no treatment could fill.

I thought about that mother for days after. About what it would have meant to have someone say: “We’re here. We’re going to take care of your son. You are not alone.” It would not have changed the medical outcome. But it would have changed everything else.

That night I witnessed the emotional trauma of a language barrier unfold in real time. It changed the way I introduce myself and explain things, even when I think someone understands. The way I push for interpreters and cultural understanding, not as an afterthought, but as an essential part of care. I began to see language access not just as a compliance requirement, but as a core quality measure. We talk about labs, imaging, and vitals, but how often do we ask, “Did this patient understand their care today?”

That night taught me that reassurance is not a luxury, not optional.

It’s as vital as oxygen.